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
What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy
All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.
Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room.
[Christianity] endeavors equally to establish these two things: that God has set up in the Church visible signs to make himself known to those who should seek him sincerely, and that he has nevertheless so disguised them that he will only be perceived by those who seek him with all their heart.
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.
All evil stems from this-that we do. Know how to handle your solitude.
Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.
To scorn philosophy is truly to philosophize.
To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical. [Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.