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
How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies.
It is right that what is just should be obeyed. It is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.
Undoubtedly equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men has made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might--so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good.
There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.
In order to enter into a real knowledge of your condition, consider it in this image: A man was cast by a tempest upon an unknown island, the inhabitants of which were in trouble to find their king, who was lost; and having a strong resemblance both in form and face to this king, he was taken for him, and acknowledged in this capacity by all the people.
Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.
Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it
Who would desire to have for a friend a man who talks in this fashion? Who would choose him out from others to tell him of his affairs? Who would have recourse to him in affliction? And indeed to what use in life could one put him?
Kind words produce their images on men's souls.
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
Thus we never live, but we hope to live; and always disposing ourselves to be happy, it is inevitable that we never become so.
Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among those who do not believe, I make a vast difference between those who strive with all their power to inform themselv
The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing
If all persons knew what they said of each other there would not be four friends in the world