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
When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.
We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.
Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is.
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.
There are vices which have no hold upon us, but in connection with others; and which, when you cut down the trunk, fall like the branches.
It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.
Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them.
Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.
Wisdom leads us back to childhood.
All of our miseries prove our greatness. They are the miseries of a dethroned monarch.
I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need of God.
Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room.
Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear.