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
That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.
The incredulous are the more credulous. They believe the miracles of Vespasian that they may not believe those of Moses. [Fr., Incredules les plus credules. Ils croient les miracle de Vespasien, pour ne pas croire ceux de Moise.]
I should not be a Christian but for the miracles.
It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.
For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the invisible.
It is not possible to have reasonable grounds for not believing in miracles.
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.
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.