Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascalwas a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth19 June 1623
CityClermont-Ferrand, France
CountryFrance
The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state.
Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.
Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.
Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.
He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide.
On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room. A man wealthy enough for life's needs would never leave home to go to sea or beseige some fortress if he knew how to stay at home and enjoy it...
La dernie' re chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage, est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la premie' re. The last thing one discovers in composing a work iswhat to put first.
Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
Tout notre raisonnement se re duit a' ce der au sentiment. All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling.
En un mot, l'homme conna|"t qu'il est mise rable: il est donc mise rable, puisqu'il l'est; mais il est bien grand, puisqu'il le conna|"t. In one word, man knows that he is miserable and therefore he is miserable because he knows it; but he is also worthy, because he knows his condition.
If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them.
If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
L'on a beau se cacher a' soi-me" me, l'on aime toujours. We vainly conceal from ourselves the fact that we are always in love.
Quelque e tendue d'esprit que l'on ait, l'on n'est capable que d'une grande passion. However vast a man's spirit, he is only capable of one great passion.