Inspirational Quotes by Blaise Pascal
“Pride counterbalances all these miseries; man either hides or displays them, and glories in his awareness of them.”
“The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.”
“Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist.”
“It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; [47] so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.”
“Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way (1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.”
“I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.”
“As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil.”
“For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.”
“If we look at our work immediately after completing it, we are still too involved; if too long afterwards, we cannot pick up the thread again. It”
“Certain authors, speaking of their works, say: "My book," "My commentary," "My history," etc. They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own and always have "My house" on their tongue.”
“Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him… But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him – the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity then consists in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time, which we cannot fill.”
“É impossível compreender que Deus exista, e é também impossível compreender que não exista; que a alma esteja unida ao corpo, e que não exista alma; que o mundo tenha sido criado, e que não tenha sido criado...”
topics: filosofia
“Where then is this self, if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can one love the body or the soul except for the sake of such qualities, which are not what makes up the self, since they are perishable? Would we love the substance of a person’s soul, in the abstract, whatever qualities might be in it? That is not possible, and it would be wrong. Therefore we never love anyone, but only qualities.”
“[80] Respect means; put yourself out. That may look pointless, but it is quite right, because it amounts to saying: I should certainly put myself out if you needed it, because I do so when you do not; besides, respect serves to distinguish the great. If respect meant sitting in an armchair we should be showing everyone respect and then there would be no way of marking distinction, but we make the distinction quite clear by putting ourselves out.”
“When we want to correct someone usefully and show him he is wrong, we must see from what point of view he is approaching the matter, for it is usually right from that point of view, and we must admit this, but show him the point of view from which it is wrong. This will please him, because he will see that he was not wrong but merely failed to see every aspect of the question. Now, no one is annoyed at not seeing everything, but no one wants to be wrong; the reason for that may be that man is not by nature able to see everything, and by nature cannot be wrong from the point of view he adopts, as sense impressions are always true.”
“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.”
“The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.”
“The tone of voice influences the wisest of us and alters the force of a speech or a poem.”
“What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”
“Όταν λέμε την αλήθεια, ωφελούμε κείνους που τη μαθαίνουν, μα ζημιώνουμε τον εαυτό μας, γιατί θα μας μισήσουν”
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Among the contemporaries of Descartes none displayed greater natural genius than Pascal, but his mathematical reputation rests more on what he might have done than on what he actually effected, as during a considerable part of his life he deemed it his duty to devote his whole time to religious exercises.
At 16, Pascal began designing a calculating machine, which he finally perfected when he was thirty, the pascaline, a beautiful handcrafted box about fourteen by five by three inches. The first accurate mechanical calculator was born.
Pascal was dismayed and disgusted by society's reactions to his machine and completely renounced his interest in science an mathematics, devoting the rest of his life to God. He is best known for his collection of spiritual essays, Les Pensees.
Ironically, Pascal, who was a genius by any measure, with one of the finest brains of all time, died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 39.
Among the contemporaries of Descartes none displayed greater natural genius than Pascal, but his mathematical reputation rests more on what he might have done than on what he actually effected, as during a considerable part of his life he deemed it his duty to devote his whole time to religious exercises.
He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a Tax Collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli.
In 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he had his "second conversion", abandoned his scientific work, and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensees.
In honor of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the SI unit of pressure, to a programming language, and Pascal's law (an important principle of hydrostatics), and as mentioned above, Pascal's triangle and Pascal's wager still bear his name.