Quotes by Blaise Pascal

God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.

Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.

Kind words produce their images on mens souls.

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.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man...?

The knowledge of God without that of mans misery causes pride. The knowledge of mans misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.

Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

If man studied himself, he would see how incapable he is of going further.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.

Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.

Eloquence is painted thought, and thus those who, after having painted it, add somewhat more, make a picture, not a portrait.

The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.

All mens miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.

Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.

This dog is mine, said those poor children; that is my place in the sun. Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.