Inspirational Quotes by Blaise Pascal
“That is why those to whom God has given religious faith by moving their hearts are very fortunate, and feel quite legitimately convinced, but to those who do not have it we can only give such faith through reasoning, until God gives it by moving their heart, without which faith is only human and useless for salvation.”
“What kind of man had the Messiah to be, since through him the sceptre was to remain for ever in Judah, but at his coming the sceptre was to be removed from Judah? To ensure that seeing they should not see and hearing they should not hear,”
“This is how the whole of our life slips by. We seek repose by battling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome we find rest is unbearable because of the boredom it generates. ... We can't imaging a condition that is pleasant without fun and noise.”
topics: obstacles
“is in vain, O men, that you seek within yourselves the remedy for your ills. All your light can only reach the knowledge that not in yourselves will you find truth or good.”
“What is wonderful, incomparable and wholly divine is that this religion which has always survived has always been under attack.”
“[133] Diversion. Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.”
“Gustavo Solivellas dice: "El corazón tiene razones que la razón ignora" (Blaise Pascal)”
“For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed. Porque, finalmente, ¿qué es el hombre en la naturaleza? Una nada frente al infinito, un todo frente a la nada, un medio entre nada y todo. Infinitamente alejado de comprender los extremos, el fin de las cosas y su principio le están invenciblemente ocultos en un secreto impenetrable, igualmente incapaz de ver la nada de donde ha sido sacado y el infinito en que se halla sumido.”
“Dos excesos: excluir a la razón y no admitir más que la razón.”
“Если ваша религия ложна, вы ничем не рискуете, считая её истинной; если она истинна, вы рискуете всем, считая её ложной.”
“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.”
“Why are we not angry if we are told that we have a headache, and why are we angry if we are told that we reason badly, or choose wrongly?" The reason is that we are quite certain that we have not a headache, or are not lame, but we are not so sure that we make a true choice. So having assurance only because we see with our whole sight, it puts us into suspense and surprise when another with his whole sight sees the opposite, and still more so when a thousand others deride our choice. For we must prefer our own lights to those of so many others, and that is bold and difficult.”
“Tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre.”
topics: malheur
“Les misères de tous les hommes tirent de ne pas être en mesure de s'asseoir dans une pièce calme seul.”
topics: misère
“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars...Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy...'This is life eternal that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.' Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ...May I not fall from him forever...I will not forget your word. Amen.”
“The best books are those whose readers think they could have written them.”
“Si no actúas como piensas, vas a terminar pensando como actúas.”
topics: máxima-externa
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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.