P

Pascal, Blaise (June 19, 1623 — August 19, 1662 // 39y)

“Pensées” (Reissue Edition) Penguin Classics (1995) // Book Source: Amazon

• “Faith is different from proof. One is human and the other a gift of God.” (p. 4, see frag. 7 or 248)

• “The basis of all this lies in the wretchedness of human existence. Realizing this they have taken to diversions.” (p. 4, see frag. 10 or 167)

• “Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.” (p. 4, see frag. 12 or 187)

• “That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.” (p. 5, see frag. 16 or 161)

• “Man’s condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.” (p. 6, see frag. 24 or 127)

• “Men are wholly occupied in pursuing their good, but they could not justify their claim to possession, because they have nothing but human fancy and no strength to make its possession secure. It is the same with knowledge, for illness removes it. We are equally incapable of truth and good.” (p. 7, see frag. 28 or 436)

• “We do not care about our reputation in towns where we are only passing through. But when we have to stay some time we do care. How much time does it take? A time proportionate to our vain and paltry existence.” (p. 7, see frag. 31 or 149)

• “Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.” (p. 8, see frag. 36 or 164)

• “When we read too fast or too slowly we understand nothing.” (p. 8, see frag. 41 or 69)

• “Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good.” (p. 11, see frag. 44 or 82)

• “Any principle, however natural it may be, even implanted in childhood, may be treated as a false impression either of education or of the senses.” (p. 12, see frag. 44 or 82)

• “Justice and truths are two points so fine that our instruments are too blunt to touch them exactly. If they do make contact, they blunt the point and press all round on the false rather than the true.” (p. 12, see frag. 44 or 82)

• “Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace. Nothing shows him the truth, everything deceives him. The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and, just as they trick the soul, they are tricked by it in their turn: it takes its revenge. The senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions. They both compete in lies and deception.” (pp. 11 & 12, see frag. 45 or 83)

• “We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching..” (p. 13, see frag. 47 or 172)

• “The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.” (p. 13, see frag. 47 or 172)

• “It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs.” (p. 15, see frag. 57 or 379)

• “Tyranny consists in the desire to dominate everything regardless of order.” (p. 15, see frag. 58 or 322)

• “We pay different dues to different kinds of merit; we must love charm, fear strength, believe in knowledge.” (p. 15, see frag. 58 or 322)

• “That is why the wisest of legislators used to say that men must often be deceived for their own good … ” (p. 17, see frag. 60 or 294)

• “When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after … the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this time and place allotted to me?” (p. 19, see frag. 68 or 205)

• “If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.” (p. 19, see frag. 70 or 165b)

• “One must know oneself. Even if that does not help in finding truth, at least it helps in running one’s life, and nothing is more proper.” (p. 19, see frag. 72 or 66)

• “Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is totally ignorant and inescapably unhappy, for anyone is unhappy who wills but cannot do. Now he wants to be happy and assured of some truth, and yet he is equally incapable of knowing and of not desiring to know. He cannot even doubt.” (p. 19, see frag. 75 or 389)

• “One says the sovereign good consists in virtue, another in sensual pleasure, another in following nature, another in truth[,] … another in total ignorance, another in indolence, others in resisting appearances, another in never feeling surprise[,] … and the good sceptics in their ataraxia, doubt and perpetual suspension of judgement. Others even wiser say that it cannot be found, not even by wishing. That is a fine answer!” (p. 20, see frag. 76 or 73)

• “Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it; in other words, we would never travel by sea if it meant never talking about it, and for the sheer pleasure of seeing things we could never hope to describe to others.” (p. 21, see frag. 77 or 152)

• “One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person.” (p. 24, see frag. 91 or 336)

• “Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it. By telling himself so often enough he convinces himself, because when he is alone he carries on an inner dialogue with himself … ” (p. 25, see frag. 99 or 536)

• “It is right to follow the right, it is necessary to follow the mighty. Right without might is helpless, might without right is tyrannical. Right without might is challenged, because there are always evil men about. Might without right is denounced. We must therefore combine right and might, and to that end make right into might or might into right. Right is open to dispute, might is easily recognized and beyond dispute. Therefore right could not be made mighty because might challenged right, calling it unjust and itself claiming to be just. Being thus unable to make right into might, we have made might into right.” (pp. 26 & 27, see frag. 103 or 298)

• “What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.” (p. 27, see frag. 108 or 339b)

• “We assume that everyone conceives of them in the same way, but that is a quite gratuitous assumption, because we have no proof that it is so.” (p. 27, see frag. 109 or 392)

• “We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them. The sceptics have no other object than that, and they work at it to no purpose. We know that we are not dreaming, but, however unable we may be to prove it rationally, our inability proves nothing but the weakness of our reason, and not the uncertainty of all our knowledge, as they maintain.” (p. 28, see frag. 110 or 282)

• “Principles are felt, propositions proved, and both with certainty though by different means. It is just as pointless and absurd for reason to demand proof of first principles from the heart before agreeing to accept them as it would be absurd for the heart to demand an intuition of all the propositions demonstrated by reason before agreeing to accept them.” (p. 28, see frag. 110 or 282)

• “I can certainly imagine a man without hands, feet, or head, for it is only experience that teaches us that the head is more necessary than the feet. But I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal.” (p. 29, see frag. 111 or 339)

• “Instinct and reason, signs of two natures.” (p. 29, see frag. 112 or 344)

• “I should therefore like to arouse in man the desire to find truth, to be ready, free from passion, to follow it wherever he may find it, realizing how far his knowledge is clouded by passions.” (p. 30, see frag. 119 or 423)

• “There is no certainty, apart from faith, as to whether man was created by a good God, an evil demon, or just by chance, and so it is a matter of doubt, depending on our origin, whether these innate principles are true, false or uncertain.” (p. 33, see frag. 131 or 434)

• “Let us then concede to the sceptics what they have so often proclaimed, that truth lies beyond our scope and is an unattainable quarry, that it is no earthly denizen, but at home in heaven, lying in the lap of God, to be known only in so far as it pleases him to reveal it. Let us learn our true nature from the uncreated and incarnate truth.” (p. 34 & 35, see frag. 131 or 434)

• “Listen to God.” (p. 35, see frag. 131 or 434)

• “But unhappy as we are (and we should be less so if there were no element of greatness in our condition) we have an idea of happiness but we cannot attain it. We perceive an image of the truth and possess nothing but falsehood, being equally incapable of absolute ignorance and certain knowledge; so obvious is it that we once enjoyed a degree of perfection from which we have unhappily fallen. Let us then conceive that man’s condition is dual. Let us conceive that man infinitely transcends man, and that without the aid of faith he would remain inconceivable to himself, for who cannot see that unless we realize the duality of human nature we remain invincibly ignorant of the truth about ourselves?” (p. 35, see frag. 131 or 434)

• “This shows that God, in his desire to make the difficulties of our existence unintelligible to us, hid the knot so high, or more precisely, so low, that we were quite unable to reach it. Consequently it is not through the proud activity of our reason but through its simple submission that we can really know ourselves.” (p. 36, see frag. 131 or 434)

• “Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.” (p. 37, see frag. 133 or 169)

• “Despite these afflictions man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy, and cannot help wanting to be happy.” (p. 37, see frag. 134 or 168)

• “I am not eternal or infinite either, but I can see that there is in nature a being who is necessary, eternal, and infinite.” (p. 37, see frag. 135 or 469)

• “The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, … in short by what is called diversion.” (p. 38, see frag. 136 or 139)

• “What people want is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us. That is why we prefer the hunt to the capture.” (p. 38, see frag. 136 or 139)

• “All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces. We must get away from it and crave excitement.” (p. 40, see frag. 136 or 139)

• “A given man lives a life free from boredom by gambling a small sum every day. Give him every morning the money he might win that day, but on condition that he does not gamble, and you will make him unhappy. It might be argued that what he wants is the entertainment of gaming and not the winnings. Make him play then for nothing; his interest will not be fired and he will become bored, so it is not just entertainment he wants. A half-hearted entertainment without excitement will bore him. He must have excitement, he must delude himself into imagining that he would be happy to win what he would not want as a gift if it meant giving up gambling. He must create some target for his passions and then arouse his desire, anger, fear, for this object he has created, just like children taking fright at a face they have daubed themselves.” (pp. 40 & 41, see frag. 136 or 139)

• “Without diversion there is no joy; with diversion there is no sadness.” (p. 41, see frag. 136 or 139)

• “The right way is to want what God wants. Christ alone leads to it.” (p. 43, see frag. 140 or 466)

• “Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice.” (p. 45, see frag. 148 or 428)

• “All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal. The reason why some go to war and some do not is the same desire in both, but interpreted in two different ways. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.” (p. 45, see frag. 148 or 428)

• “So, while the present never satisfies us, experience deceives us, and leads us on from one misfortune to another until death comes as the ultimate and eternal climax.” (p. 45, see frag. 148 or 428)

• “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” (p. 45, see frag. 148 or 428)

• “God alone is man’s true good, and since man abandoned him it is a strange fact that nothing in nature has been found to take his place … ” (p. 45, see frag. 148 or 428)

• “Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not.” (p. 50, see frag. 149 or 430)

• “If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.” (p. 54, see frag. 173 or 273)

• “There are few true Christians.” (p. 55, see frag. 179 or 256)

• “Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realize that. If natural things are beyond it, what are we to say about supernatural things?” (p. 56, see frag. 188 or 267)

• “The whole visible world is only an imperceptible dot in nature’s ample bosom. No idea comes near it; it is no good inflating our conceptions beyond imaginable space, we only bring forth atoms compared to the reality of things. Nature is an infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere. In short it is the greatest perceptible mark of God’s omnipotence that our imagination should lose itself in that thought.” (p. 60, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “What is a man in the infinite?” (p. 60, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “For, after all, what is man in nature? A nothing compared to the infinite, a whole compared to the nothing, a middle point between all and nothing, infinitely remote from an understanding of the extremes; the end of things and their principles are unattainably hidden from him in impenetrable secrecy.” (p. 61, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “All things have come out of nothingness and are carried onwards to infinity.” (p. 61, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “Let us then realize our limitations. We are something and we are not everything.” (p. 62, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “Limited in every respect, we find this intermediate state between two extremes reflected in all our faculties. Our senses can perceive nothing extreme; too much noise deafens us, too much light dazzles; when we are too far or too close we cannot see properly; an argument is obscured by being too long or too short; too much truth bewilders us.” (p. 63, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “First principles are too obvious for us … ” (p. 63, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “Let us then seek neither assurance nor stability; our reason is always deceived by the inconsistency of appearances; nothing can fix the finite between the two infinites which enclose and evade it.” (p. 63, see frag. 199 or 72)

• “Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.” (p. 66, see frag. 200 or 347)

• “We can understand nothing of God’s works unless we accept the principle that he wished to blind some and enlighten others.” (p. 72, see frag. 232 or 566)

• “Man is not worthy of God but he is not incapable of being made worthy.” (p. 74, see frag. 239 or 510)