Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Blaise Pascal

French Catholic Philosopher, Scientist, Mathematician, Inventor, Writer

"The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way."

"The least movement affects all nature; the entire sea changes because of a rock."

"The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him."

"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble."

"The majority is the best way, because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able."

"The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it."

"The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able."

"The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding."

"The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pulley is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel."

"The mind naturally makes progress, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that for want of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones."

"The most powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses and reason."

"The multitude which is not brought to act as unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its origin in the multitude is tyranny."

"The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great things, are the marks of a strange inversion."

"The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the might of God."

"The state of man: inconstancy, weariness, unrest."

"The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material."

"The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it."

"The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great things indicates a strange inversion."

"There is nothing man cannot make natural; there is nothing natural which he cannot lose."

"The world is content with words; few think of searching into the nature of things."

"This letter is long because I didn't have time to write a short one."

"There is nothing so insupportable to man as to be in entire repose, without passion, occupation, amusement, or application. Then it is that he feels his own nothingness, isolations, insignificance, dependent nature, powerlessness, emptiness. Immediately there issue from his soul ennui, sadness, chagrin, vexation, despair."

"Those whom we call ancients were in truth new in every respect, and actually formed the childhood of man; and since we have added to their knowledge the experience of the succeeding centuries, it is in ourselves that that antiquity can be found which we revere in others."

"There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs."

"Thought... is the essence of man, and without this we cannot conceive of him."

"To eternity itself there is no other handle than the present moment. Let any man examine his thoughts and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so. All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone."

"To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. The greatness of the human soul is shown by knowing how to keep within proper bounds. So far from greatness consisting in going beyond its limits, it really consists in keeping within it."

"To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity."

"Time cures sorrows and squabbles because we all change, and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended is the same."

"To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher."

"To find recreation in amusements is not happiness; for this joy springs from alien and extrinsic sources, and is therefore dependent upon and subject to interruption by a thousand accidents, which may minister inevitable affliction."

"We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also by the heart."

"We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it."

"We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare."

"What a chimera is man! what a confused chaos! what a subject of contradiction! a professed judge of all things, and ;yet a feeble worm of the earth! the great depository and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty! the glory and the scandal of the universe!"

"What a chimera, then, is man!... the pride and refuse of the universe!"

"What but this faculty of imagination dispenses reputation, awards respect and veneration to persons, works, laws, and the great? How insufficient are all the riches of the earth without her consent!"

"We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised by it, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem."

"What vanity is painting, which attracts admiration to things which in the original we do not admire."

"When he consults himself man knows that he is great. When he contemplates the universe around him he knows that he is little and his ultimate greatness consists in his knowledge of his littleness."

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have the place and time been allotted to me?... The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me."

"When malice has reason on its side, it looks forth bravely, and displays that reason in all its luster. When austerity and self-denial have not realized true happiness, and the soul returns to the dictates of nature, the reaction is fearfully extravagant."

"Either God exists or he does not. But to which side shall we lean? Reason can decide nothing; there is infinite chaos which separates us. A game is being played, at the extremity of this infinite distance, where heads or tails will fall. What will you bet? If you win, you win everything. If you lose, you lose nothing. Bet then that he exists, without hesitating."

"Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us."

"All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature."

"How far is it from the knowledge of God to a love of Him!"

"I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you."

"If our condition were truly happy, we should not need to divert ourselves from it. Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things. I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his own room."

"If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous."

"In God the word does not differ from the intention, for He is true; nor the word from the effect, for He is powerful; nor the means from the effect, for He is wise."