Blaise Pascal

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

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

Justice and truth are too such subtle points that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

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.

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

We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.

The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

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

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.

Vanity is but the surface.

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

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