BLAISE PASCAL QUOTES

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.
To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
Kind words don't cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back
I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in
the world.
I would prefer an intelligent hell to a stupid paradise.
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we
cannot know it.
Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.
(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)
Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all
tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both,
attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of
every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they
find attractive.
To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadow for those who don't.
When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange
disorder.
Little things comfort us because little things distress us.
Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and
sees distinctly what it loves.
We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us
by others.
It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no
difference between men.
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he
is engulfed.
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of
a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by
those which have come into the mind of others.
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 . . . There are two equally
dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.
Le silence eternel des ces espaces infinis m'effraie - The eternal silence of these infinite spaces
frightens me.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything.
Love still stands when all else has fallen.
Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the
other.
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
La dernire chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la premire.
(The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.)
To understand is to forgive.
The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most
suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts
born from the common talk of life.
Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference...
When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness,
and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who
put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing
anything, I am moved to terror,
a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who
wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive
people to despair.
By space the universe encompasses me and swallows me up
world.

an atom; by thought I comprehend the

And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime
to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble
on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then,
without hesitation, that He exists.
I ask you neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that you may dispose of my
health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory ... You alone know what is expedient for
me; you are the sovereign master, do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from
me, only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you, and bad to
offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most

profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment
is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your providence, which I
adore, but do not seek to fathom.
Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.
The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.
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.
And if one loves me for my judgement, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities
without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul? And how love
the body or the soul, except for these qualities which do not constitute me, since they are perishable?
For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a person in the abstract and whatever
qualities might be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.
Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and office; for we love a
person only on account of borrowed qualities.
Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our
miseries.
Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.
Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.
Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our
nature... and the thing which pleases us.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason,
but by the heart." -
Since we cannot know all there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about
everything.
The more I see of Mankind, the more I prefer my dog.
We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking

the people.

Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.

There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a
contrary disposition
Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.
Le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connat point.
Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes
insufferable.
Atheists. What grounds have they for saying that no one can rise from the dead? Which is harder, to
be born or to rise again? That what has never been should be, or that what has been should be once
more? Is it harder to come into existence than to come back? Habit makes us find the one easy, while
lack of habit makes us find the other impossible.
Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without
entertainment, without care.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.

Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future.
We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on
our plans for the future. 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.
The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has
a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love;
that would be absurd.
The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play
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.
If God exists, not seeking God must be the gravest error imaginable. If one decides to sincerely seek
for God and doesn't find God, the lost effort is negligible in comparison to what is at risk in not seeking
God in the first place.
There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think
they are righteous.
Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable.
Words differently arranged have different meanings, and meanings differently arranged have different
effects.
The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing.
God instituted prayer to communicate to creatures the dignity of causality.
When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which precedes and will succeed it
memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis (remembrance of a guest who tarried but a day)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 place and time allotted to me?
Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough.
If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exsists.
No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin; none of the philosophical sects has
admitted it; none therefore has spoken the truth
The human being is only a reed, the most feeble in nature; but this is a thinking reed. It isn't necessary
for the entire universe to arm itself in order to crush him; a whiff of vapor, a taste of water, suffices to
kill him. But when the universe crushes him, the human being becomes still more noble than that which
kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and the advantage that the universe has over him. The
universe, it does not have a clue.
"All our dignity consists, then, in thought. This is the basis on which we must raise ourselves, and not
space and time, which we would not know how to fill. Let us make it our task, then, to think well: here is
the principle of morality.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my
prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.
We know the truth, not only be the reason, but also be the heart.
Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole
universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. but even if the
universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is
dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.
When a soldier complains of his hard life (or a labourer, etc.) try giving him nothing to do.
The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.
Man's sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange
disorder.
We run carelessly over the precipice after having put something in front of us to prevent us seeing it.
He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead
him aright
A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who
don't.
Just as I do not know where I came from, so I do not know where I am going. All I know is that when I
leave this world I shall fall forever into oblivion, or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing
which of the two will be my lot for eternity. Such is my state of mind, full of weakness and uncertainty.
The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that I must pass my days without a thought of trying to
find out what is going to happen to me.
If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse.
And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the
madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these
beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.
Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people goodnatured. They also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is.
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me
What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of
contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a
sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?
Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not
forget thy word. Amen.
We make an idol of truth itself, for truth apart from charity is not God, but his image and an idol that
we must not love or worship.
To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a
saint is, or a man.
Please forgive the long letter; I didnt have time to write a short one.
Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The
sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find
themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all
that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which
they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who
have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of
this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything.
The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of
everything, and the world judges rightly of them.
It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how
he is to the animals without pointing out his
greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more
dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him.
Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of
either, but he must know both.
If he exalts himself, I humble him.
If he humbles himself, I exalt him.
And I go on contradicting him
Until he understands
That he is a monster that passes all understanding.
Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold
insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.
they do not know that they seek only
the chase and not the quarry.
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
All human evil comes from a single cause, mans inability to sit still in a room.
Happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as
united to him.
When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of
space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that
know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there now instead of
then.
Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves
without despair.
Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.
Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of
us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own
standards.
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have
occurred to others.
Happiness is neither within us only, or without us; it is the union of ourselves with God
The greatest and most important thing in the world is founded on weakness. This is a remarkably sure
foundation, for nothing is surer than that the people will be weak.
Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.
Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without
knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both

God and our wretchedness.

The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these twin vices, not by using one to expel the other
according to worldly wisdom, but by expelling both through the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches
the righteous, whom it exalts, even to participation in divinity itself, that in this sublime state they still
bear the source of all corruption, which exposes them throughout their lives to error, misery, death and
sin; and it cries out to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of their redeemer. Thus,
making those whom it justifies tremble and consoling those whom it condemns, it so nicely tempers
fear with hope through this dual capacity, common to all men, for grace and sin, that it causes infinitely
more dejection than mere reason, but without despair, and infinitely more exaltation than natural pride,
but without puffing us up.
There is nothing we can now call our own, for what we call so is the effect of art; crimes are made by
decrees of the senate, or by the votes of the people; and as here-to-fore we are burdened by vices, so
now we are oppressed by laws.
God wishes to move the will rather than the mind. Perfect clarity would help the mind and harm the
will.
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much
The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have
no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up
an atom; by
thought I comprehend the world.
What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all
things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the
universe.
Unless we know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, concupiscence, weakness, wretchedness and
unrighteousness, we are truly blind. And if someone knows all this and does not desire to be saved,
what can be said of him?
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.
Justice, might.It is right that what is just should be obeyed; it is necessary that what is strongest
should be obeyed. Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical. Justice without
might is gainsaid, because there are always offenders; might without justice is condemned. We must
then combine justice and might, and for this end make what is just strong, or what is strong just.
Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognised and is not disputed. So we cannot give might to
justice, because might has gainsaid justice, and has declared that it is she herself who is just. And thus
being unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all
tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both,
attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of
every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
And yet after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all
continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong
and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all time, all ages, and all conditions.
A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the
good by our own efforts.... 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 remains 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.
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 the
present usually hurts.
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.
Everything that is incomprehensible does not cease to exist.
We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.
There is nothing so consistent with reason as this denial of reason.
Those who have known God without knowing their own wretchedness have not glorified him but
themselves.
We naturally believe we are more capable of reaching the centre of things than of embracing their
circumference, and the visible extent of the world is visibly greater than we. But since we in our turn
are greater than small things, we think we are more capable of mastering them, and yet it takes no less
capacity to reach nothingness than the whole. In either case it takes an infinite capacity, and it seems
to me that anyone who had understood the ultimate principles of things might also succeed in knowing
infinity. One depends on the other, and one leads to the other. These extremes touch and join by going
in opposite directions, and they meet in God and God alone.
It is superstitious to put one's hope in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.
We know the existence of the infinite without knowing its nature, because it too has extension but un
us no limits.
But we do not know either the existence or the nature of God, because he has neither extension nor
limits.
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little
space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant,
and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there
is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose
order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei
prtereuntis.
It is better to know something about everything then everything about something
We desire truth and find within ourselves only uncertainty.
For it is beyond doubt that there is nothing which more shocks our reason than to say that the sin of
the first man has rendered guilty those, who, being so removed from this source, seem incapable of
participation in it. This transmission does not only seem to us impossible, it seems also very unjust. For
what is more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of
will, for a sin wherein he seems to have so little a share, that it was committed six thousand years
before he was in existence? Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet,
without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The knot
of our condition takes its twists and turns in this abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without this
mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man.
Le cur a ses raisons que la raison ne connat point.
If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day.
And if an artisan was sure of dreaming for twelve hours every night that he was king, I believe he would
be almost as happy as a king who dreamed for twelve hours every night that he was an artisan.
...But because dreams are all different, and there is a variety even within each one, what we see in
them affects us much less than what we see when we are awake, because of the continuity. This,
however, is not so continuous and even that it does not change too, though less abruptly, except on
rare occasions, as on a journey, when we say: 'It seems a dream.' For life is a dream, but somewhat

less changeable.
I feel that it is possible that I might never have existed, for my self consists in thought; therefore I who
think would never have been if my mother had been killed before I had come to life; therefore I am not
a necessary being. I am not eternal or infinite either
L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c'est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas
que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'raser: un vapeur, un goutte d'eau suffit pout le tuer. Mais, quand
l'univers l'craserait, l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, pare qu'il sait qu'il meurt, et
l'avantage que l'univers a sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien.
Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed.
Nothing strengthens the case for scepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not
sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong.
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.
Habit is a second nature thta destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very
much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Be humble, impotent reason! Be silent,
feeble nature! Learn that man infinitely transcends man, hear from your master your true condition,
which is unknown to you.
Sceptic, mathematician, Christian; doubt, affirmation, submission.
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.
Little of everything. - As we cannot be universal by knowing everything there is to know about
everything, we must know a little about everything, because it is much better to know something about
everything than everything about something. Such universality is the finest. It would be still better if we
could have both together, but, if a choice must be made, this is the one to choose. The world knows
this and does so, for the world is often a good judge.
Power rules the world, not opinion, but it is opinion that exploits power.
It is power that makes opinion. To be easygoing can be a fine thing according to our opinion. Why?
Because anyone who wants to dance the tightrope will be alone, and I can get together a stronger body
of people to say there is nothing fine about it.
At the far end of this infinite distance a coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How
will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong.
Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.
Too much clarity darkens.
All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling.
I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay
quietly in their own chamber.
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us
so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is.

Kind words produce their images on men's souls.

The eternal being exists for ever if he once exists.

Vanity is so firmly anchored in man's heart that a soldier, a camp follower, a cook or a porter will boast
and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy
the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and
perhaps I who write this want the same thing.
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.
Nature constantly begins the same things over again, years, days, hours, spaces too. And numbers run
end to end, one after another. This makes something in a way infinite and eternal. It is not that any of
this is really infinite and eternal, but these finite entities multiply infinitely. Thus only number, which
multiplies them, seems to me to be infinite.
Why should I choose to divide my ethics into four rather than six? Why should I define virtue as four,
or two, or one? Why as desist and resist rather than 'follow nature' or 'discharge your private business
without injustice',
Plato, or anything else?
'But,' you will say, 'there everything is summed up in a word. - 'Yes, but that is no good unless you
explain it.' And when you come to explain it, as soon as you open up this precept which contains all the
others, out they all come in the original confusion that you wanted to avoid. Thus when they are all
enclosed in one they are concealed and useless, as if they were in a box, and they only come to light in
their natural confusion. Nature has laid them down, without enclosing one inside another.
There is no denying it; one must admit that there is something astonishing about Christianity. 'It is
because you were born in it,' they will say. Far from it; I stiffen myself against it for that very reason, for
fear of being corrupted by prejudice. But, though I was born in it, I cannot help finding it astonishing.
The two foundations; one inward, the other outward; grace, miracles; both supernatural.
Just as all things speak about God to those that know Him, and reveal Him to those that love Him, they
also hide Him from all those that neither seek nor know Him.
We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are,
they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case
should we build fine houses, etc.? We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we
show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.
Knowlege of God without knowledge of man's wretchedness leads to pride. Knowledge of man's
wretchedness without knowledge of God leads to despair. Knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle
course, because by it we discover both God and our wretched state.
Evil is never done so thoroughly or so well as when it is done with a good conscience.
The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion. And yet it is the greatest of our miseries.
For it is that above all which prevents us thinking about ourselves and leads is imperceptibly to
destruction. But for that we should be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid
means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.
What must I do? I see nothing but obscurities on every side.'
'Shall I believe I am nothing? Shall I believe I am God?
They prefer death to peace, others prefer death to war.
Any opinion can be preferred to life, which it seems so natural to love dearly.
It is not in space that I must seek my human dignity, but in the ordering of my thought. It will do me
no good to own land. Through space the universe grasps me and swallows me up
a speck; through
thought I grasp it.
Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the
brute.
One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he
finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is
wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

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,
gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion...Thus men who
are naturally conscious of what they are shun nothing so much as rest; they would do anything to be
disturbed.
It is wrong then to blame them; they are not wrong to want excitement - if they only wanted it for the
sake of diversion. The trouble is that they want it as though, once they had the things they seek, they
could not fail to be truly happy. That is what justifies calling their search a vain one. All this shows that
neither the critics nor the criticized understand man's real nature.
When men are reproached for pursuing so eagerly something that could never satisfy them, their
proper answer, if they really thought about it, ought to be that they simply want a violent and vigorous
occupation to take their minds off themselves, and that is why they choose some attractive object to
entice them in ardent pursuit. Their opponents could find no answer to that.
It is absurd of us to rely on the company of our fellows, as wretched and helpless as we are; they will
not help us; we shall die alone.
We must act then as if we were alone. If that were so, would we build superb houses, etc.? We should
unhesitatingly look for the truth. And, if we refuse, it shows that we have a higher regard for men's
esteem than for pursuing the truth.
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.
We know that there is an infinite, and we know not its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers
are finite, it is therefore true that there is a numerical infinity. But we know not of what kind; it is untrue
that it is even, untrue that it is odd; for the addition of a unit does not change its nature; yet it is a
number, and every number is odd or even (this certainly holds of every finite number). Thus we may
quite well know that there is a God without knowing what He is.
The eternal silence of these infinite places fills me with dread.
I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the same time the excess of the
opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For
otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in
touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space.
The only religion which is against nature, against common sense and against our pleasures is the only
one which has always existed.
For the chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not
so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.
Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery.
Since [man's] true nature has been lost, anything can become his nature: similarly, true good being
lost, anything can become his true good.
I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who
choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me.
This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses
and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after
displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor
signs, but only the Cross and folly.
Jesus Christ and St Paul possess the order of charity, not of the mind, for they wished to humble, not to
teach.
The infinite distance between body and mind symbolizes the infinitely more infinite distance between
mind and charity, for charity is supernatural.
...Out of all bodies together we could not succeed in creating one little thought. It is impossible, and of
a different order. Out of all bodies and minds we could not extract one impulse of true charity. It is

impossible, and of a different, supernatural, order.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to
recognize them.
Thus I stretch out my arms to my Saviour, who, after being foretold for four thousand years, came on
earth to die and suffer for me at the time and in the circumstances foretold. By his grace I peaceably
await death, in the hope of being eternally united to him, and meanwhile I live joyfully, whether in the
blessings which he is pleased to bestow on me or in the affliction he sends me for my own good and
taught me how to endure by his example.
The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of."
Read "The Locket" to learn more!
Cuando no se ama demasiado no se ama lo suficiente
El amor no tiene edad; siempre est naciendo.
What reason for vanity in being plunged into impenetrable darkness?

and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at
some imaginary affront to his honour is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything
through death and feels neither anxiety nor emotion.
What then is to become of man? Will he be the equal of god or the beasts? What a terrifying distance!
What then shall he be? Who cannot see from all this that man is lost, that he has fallen from his place,
that he anxiously seeks it, and cannot find it again? And who then is to direct him there? The greatest
men have failed.
Our imagination so magnifies the present, because we are continually thinking about it, and so
reduces eternity, because we do not think about it, that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into
eternity, and all this is so strongly rooted within us that all our reason cannot save us from it.
The true religion would have to teach greatness and wretchedness, inspire self-esteem and selfcontempt, love and hate.
El hombre tiene ilusiones como el pjaro alas. Eso es lo que lo sostiene
The Stoics say, " Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true.
Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes.
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.
We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. Our instinct makes us feel that we must seek our
happiness outside ourselves. Our passions impel us outside, even when no objects present themselves
to excite them. External objects tempt us of themselves, and call to us, even when we are not thinking
of them. And thus philosophers have said in vain, " Retire within yourselves, you will find your good
there." We do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish.
As I write down my thought it sometimes escapes me, but that reminds me of my weakness, which I
am always forgetting, and teaches me as much as my forgotten thought, for I care only about knowing
that I am nothing.
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Jesus Christ is the god whom we approach without pride, and before whom we humble ourselves
without despair.
What is the self?
A man goes to the window to see the people passing by; if I pass by, can I say he went there to see
me? No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But what about a person who loves someone for the
sake of her beauty; does he love her? No, for smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying

the person, will put an end to his love for her.

And if someone loves me for my judgement or my memory, do they love me? me, myself? No, for I
could lose these qualities without losing my self. 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.
Let us then stop scoffing at those who win honour through their appointments and offices, for we never
love anyone except for borrowed qualities.
When we come across a natural style, we are surprised and delighted; for we expected an author, and
we
find a man.
Ciascuno esamini i propri pensieri: li trover sempre occupati dal passato e dall'avvenire. Non
pensiamo quasi mai al presente, o se ci pensiamo, solo per prenderne lume al fine di predisporre
l'avvenire. Il presente non mai il nostro fine: il passato o il presente sono i nostri mezzi; solo l'avvenire
il nostro fine. Cos non viviamo mai, ma speriamo di vivere, e, preparandoci sempre ad essere felici,
inevitabile che non siamo mai tali.
When you say that Christ did not die for all men, you are abusing a weakness of men, who at once
apply this exception to themselves, and this encourages despair, instead of turning them away from it
to encourage hope.
S'il se vante, je l'abaisse;
s'il s'abaisse, je le vante;
et le contredis toujours,
jusqu' qu'il comprenne
qu'il est un monstre incomprhensible.
Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from
the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set
an eternal lamp to
illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described
by the sun; and let him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine point in
comparison with that described by the stars in their revolution round the firmament. But if our view be
arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than
nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom
in the ample bosom of nature. It is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the
circumference nowhere. In short it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that
imagination loses itself in that thought.
Ultimul act e sngeros; orict de frumoas ar fi comedia n rest; ni se arunc pmnt n cap i cu asta
se ncheie totul pentru totdeauna.
Wisdom leads us back to childhood. Except ye become as little children.
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
Ultimul lucru pe care-l aflm cnd alctuim o lucrare este cu ce ar fi trebuit s ncepem.
I see the terrifying spaces of the universe that enclose me, and I find myself attached to a corner of
this vast expanse, without knowing why I am more in this place than in another, nor why this little time
that is given me to live is assigned me at this point more than another out of all the eternity that has
preceded me and out of all that will follow me.
No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God incline his heart, and no man when God
does incline his heart can refrain from believing.
l'silence eternal de ces espaces infinis m'effraie
Nu m-ai fi cautat, daca nu m-ai fi gasit
O corao tem razes que a Razo desconhece.

nsa n cazul n care universul l-ar strivi, omul ar fi nca mai nobil dect ceea ce-l ucide; pentru ca el
stie ca moare; iar avantajul pe care universul l are asupra lui, acest univers nu-l cunoaste.
Alergm fr ncetare spre prpastie dup ce am aezat ceva n faa noastr pentru a ne mpiedica s
o vedem.
Omul este asa de mare, nct maretia lui reiese si din aceea ca el se stie nenorocit.
S'il se vante, je l'abaisse,
S'il s'abaisse, je le vante;
Et le contredis toujours,
Jusqu' ce qu'il comprenne
Qu'il est un monstre incomprhensible.
Pride counterbalances all these miseries; man either hides or displays them, and glories in his
awareness of them.
Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.
The parts of the universe . . . all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be
impossible to understand any one without the whole.

For, after all, what is man in nature? ...a middle point between all and nothing...What else can he do,
then, but perceive some semblance of the middle of things, eternally hopeless of knowing either their
principles or their end? All things have come out of nothingness and are carried onwards to infinity. Who
can follow these astonishing processes? The author of these wonders understands them: no one else
can.
All that is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress.
Once that is clearly understood, I think that each of us can stay quietly in the state in which nature has
placed him. since the middle station allotted to us is always far from the extremes, what does it matter
if someone else has a slightly better understanding of things? If he has, and if he takes them a little
further, is he not still infinitely remote from the goal? Is not our span of life equally infinitesimal in
eternity, even if it is extended by ten years?
In the perspective of all these infinites, all finites are equal and I see no reason to settle our imagination
on one rather than another. Merely comparing ourselves with the finite is painful.
impossvel compreender que Deus exista, e tambm impossvel compreender que no exista; que
a alma esteja unida ao corpo, e que no exista alma; que o mundo tenha sido criado, e que no tenha
sido criado...
Do not be astonished to see simple people believing without argument. God makes them love him and
hate themselves. He inclines their hearts to believe. We shall never believe, with an effective belief and
faith, unless God inclines our hearts.
The motions of Grace, the hardness of heart; external circumstances.
Reverend Fathers, my letters do not customarily follow one another so closely, nor are they usually so
extensive. The little time I have had has caused both. I have made this one longer only because I have
not had the leisure of making it shorter.
Nie betrieben die Menschen das Bse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiser berzeugung.
Inima i are propriile raiuni pe care raiunea nu le cunoate|
Do they think that they have given us great pleasure by telling us that they hold our soul to be no
more than wind or smoke, and saying it moreover in tones of pride and satisfaction? Is this then
something to be said gaily? Is it not on the contrary something to be said sadly, as being the saddest
thing in the world?
Two contrary reasons. We must begin with that, otherwise we cannot understand anything and
everything is heretical. And even at the end of each truth we must add that we are bearing the

opposite truth in mind.

Nobody is publicly accepted as an expert on poetry unless he displays the sign of poet,
mathematician, etc., but universal men want no sign and make hardly any distinction between the
crafts of poet and embroiderer.
Universal men are not called poets or mathematicians, etc. But they are all these things and judges of
them too. No one could guess what they are, and they will talk about whatever was being talked about
when they came in. One quality is not more noticeable in them than another, unless it becomes
necessary to put it into practice, and then we remember it.
All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public
weal. But this is only a pretence and a false image of love; for at bottom it is only hate.
In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it
is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each self is the enemy, and would
to be the
tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it
lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find
in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust
For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as
incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice;
since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride.
All their principles are true, sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc...but their conclusions are false, because the
contrary principles are also true.
Extreme intelligence is accused of being as foolish as extreme lack of it; only moderation is good. The
majority have laid this down and attack anyone who deviates from it towards any extreme whatever. I
am not going to be awkward, I readily consent to being put in the middle and refuse to be at the bottom
end, not because it is the bottom but because it is the end, for I should refuse just as much to be put at
the top. It is deserting humanity to desert the middle way.
The greatness of the human soul lies in knowing how to keep this course; greatness does not mean
going outside it, but rather keeping within it.
Two infinites. Mean. When we read too quickly or too slowly we do not understand anything.
The heart has its reasons,
of which reason means nothing.
The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.
'Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, and walk therein.'
There are two ways of persuading men of the truths of our religion; one by the power of reason, the
other by the authority of the speaker.
We do not use the latter but the former. We do not say: 'You must believe that because Scripture, which
says it, is divine,' but we say that it must be believed for such and such a reason. But these are feeble
arguments, because reason can be bent in any direction.
The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire his companion. Not that there is no
rivalry between them in a race, but that is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and
most ill-formed does not give up his oats to another as men would have others do to them. Their virtue
is satisfied with itself.
If our state were really happy, we should not need to take our minds off it in order to make ourselves
happy.
We must sit by these rivers, not under or in them, but above, not standing upright, but sitting down, so
that we remain humble by sitting, and safe by remaining above.
Do you want it always to cost me the blood of my humanity while you do not even shed a tear?

You would not seek me if you did not possess me.

Nous sommes de bien petites mcaniques gares par les infinis.
Nada nos puede consolar cuando lo pensamos detenidamente.
: ' , .
To be of noble birth is a great advantage. In eighteen years it places a man within the select circle,
known and respected, as another have merited in fifty years. It is a gain of thirty years without trouble.
Ci Puo' essere quakcosa di piu' stupido del fatto che un uomo abbia il diritto di uccidermi perche' vive
sull'altra sponda di un fiume e il suo sovrano ha avuto una lite con il mio, anche se io non ho litigato
con lui?
Wisdom is a return to childhood.
For after all, what is man in creation? Is he not a mere cipher compared with the infinite, a whole
compared to the nothing, a mean between zero & all, infinitely remote from understanding of either
extreme? Who can follow these astonishing processes? The Author of these wonders understands them,
but no one else can.
Truth is not an object to be possessed; it is a living thing recognized, cultivated by the mind and
heart.
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not
to think about such things.
Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness
without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us
both God and our own wretchedness.
All human troubles derive from our inability to sit still and alone in a room.
We seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves
unbearable because of the boredom it produces...
Why are you killing me?
It would therefore be a good thing for us to obey laws and customs because they are laws: to know
that there is no right and just law to be brought in, that we know nothing about it and should
consequently only follow those already accepted. In this way we should never give them up. But the
people are not amenable to this doctrine, and thus, believing that truth can be found and resides in
laws and customs, they believe them and take their antiquity as a proof of their truth (and not just of
their authority, without truth). Thus they obey them but are liable to revolt as soon as they are shown
to be worth nothing, which can happen with all laws if they are looked at from a certain point of view.
There is some pleasure in being on board a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not
perishing. The persecutions buffeting the Church are
this.

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