1623-1662, French Scientist, Religious Philosopher
All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal – [Misers and Misery]
Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion.
Blaise Pascal – [Admiration]
Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.
Blaise Pascal – [Unity]
Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us.
Blaise Pascal – [Beauty]
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.
Blaise Pascal – [Belief]
Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
Blaise Pascal – [Life and Living]
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
Blaise Pascal – [Contradiction]
Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.
Blaise Pascal – [Desire]
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
Blaise Pascal – [Speakers and Speaking]
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
Blaise Pascal – [Enthusiasm]
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise Pascal – [Fame]
Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
Blaise Pascal – [Evil]
Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.
Blaise Pascal – [Faith]
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other.
Blaise Pascal – [Faith]
Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
Blaise Pascal – [Faith]
Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
Blaise Pascal – [Habit]
Habit is the second nature which destroys the first.
Blaise Pascal – [Habit]
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal – [Evil]
I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter.
Blaise Pascal – [Wordiness]
I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
Blaise Pascal – [Gossip]