Inspirational Quotes by Blaise Pascal
“İnsanoğlunun tüm mutsuzluğu tek başına sessizce bir odada oturamamaktan kaynaklanır.”
“When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered.”
“[138] Diversion. It is easier to bear death when one is not thinking about it than the idea of death when there is no danger. (166)”
“We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.”
“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. If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.”
topics: pascal-wager
“God's will has been to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek it, but men have shown themselves so unworthy that it is right for God to refuse to some, for their hardness of heart, what he grants to others by a mercy they have not earned... 'There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.”
“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.”
“Nos magistrats ont bien connu ce mystère. Leurs robes rouges, leurs hermines dont ils s'emmaillotent en chaffourés, les palais où ils jugent, les fleurs de lys, tout cet appareil auguste était fort nécessaire, et si les médecins n'avaient des soutanes et des mules, et que les docteurs n'eussent des bonnets carrés et des robes trop amples de quatre parties, jamais ils n'auraient dupé le monde qui ne peut résister à cette montre si authentique.”
“Put the world’s greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be: if there is a precipice below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.”
“[38] Too much and too little wine. Do not give him any, he cannot find the truth. Give him too much; the same thing.”
“[36] 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.”
“There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.”
“[23] Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.”
“Les hommes ont mépris pour la religion. Ils en ont haine et peur qu’elle soit vraie. Pour guérir cela il faut commencer par montrer que la religion n’est point contraire à la raison. Vénérable, en donner respect. La rendre ensuite aimable, faire souhaiter aux bons qu’elle fut vraie et puis montrer qu’elle est vraie. Vénérable parce qu’elle a bien connu l’homme. Aimable parce qu’elle promet le vrai bien.”
“not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band,”
“If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it. (12)”
― Blaise Pascal ,
from Human Happiness
“Let us then strive to think well; that is basic principle of morality. (54)”
― Blaise Pascal ,
from Human Happiness
“Be comforted; it is not from yourself that you must expect it, but on the contrary you must expect it by expecting nothing from yourself. (Page 55)”
― Blaise Pascal ,
from Human Happiness
“Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up like a speck; through thought I grasp it. (Page 21)”
― Blaise Pascal ,
from Human Happiness
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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.