Blaise Pascal

“The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.”

“The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.”

“Men often take their imagination for their heart and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.”

“When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.”

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

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”

“Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.”

“Men blaspheme what they do not know.”

“The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.”

“Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.”

“Man's true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.”

“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.”

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

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”

“Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?”

“Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.”

“Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.”

“Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.”

“Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.”

“Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.”

“The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.”

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

“Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth give him too much, the same.”