Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher, Scientist)

Blaise Pascal (1623–62) was a French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. Later a Jansenist scholar, he wrote two classics of French devotional thought, the Lettres Provinciales 1656–57,) directed against the casuistry of the Jesuits, and Pensées (1670,) a defense of Christianity.

Born in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Pascal was the son of a venerated mathematician and a local bureaucrat. Early in life, Pascal proved that he was a prodigy by discovering Euclid’s first 23 propositions for himself at the age of 11. Pascal’s work contains his famous theorem on a hexagram inscribed in a conic.

While only 17, Pascal published an essay on mathematics that René Descartes refused to recognize as being the work of a teen. Pascal produced (1642–44) a calculating device to aid his father in his local administration; Gottfried Leibniz later simplified it.

With Pierre de Fermat, Pascal laid the foundations of the mathematical system of probability. He also contributed to calculus and hydrodynamics, devising Pascal’s Law in 1647. He developed the hydraulic press, the barometer, and the syringe and published his work on vacuums in 1647. The SI unit of pressure is named after him.

In 1646, Pascal converted to Jansenism, and religion became progressively dominant in his life, culminating in him joining the Jansenist retreat at Port-royal Des Champs in 1655. There, Pascal disseminated a religious doctrine that clarified the experience of God through the heart instead of through reason. The establishment of his belief of intuitionism had a bearing on such later philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henri Bergson and on the Existentialists.

Pascal’s notes for a casebook of Christian truths were found after his death and published as the Pensées in 1669. They contain intense perceptions of religious truths coupled with a suspicion of rationalist thought and theology.

Notable biographies of Pascal include Jean Mesnard’s Pascal: His Life and Works (1951; trans. 1952) and Ernest Mortimer’s Blaise Pascal: The Life and Work of a Realist (1959.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Blaise Pascal

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
Blaise Pascal

Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us.—We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes.—But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep them.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Fashion

The origins of disputes between philosophers is, that one class of them have undertaken to raise man by displaying his greatness, and the other to debase him by showing his miseries.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Philosophy, Science

I have concluded that the whole misfortune of men comes from a single thing, and that is their inability to remain at rest in a room.
Blaise Pascal

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Letters, Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing

Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Style

Beauty is a harmonious relation between something in our nature and the quality of the object which delights us.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Beauty, Virtues

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Philosophers, Science, Philosophy

There are truths on this side of the Pyranees, which are falsehoods on the other.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Perspective

We are more easily persuaded, in general, by the reasons we ourselves discover than by those which are given to us by others.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Self-Discovery

What a vanity is painting, which attracts admiration by the resemblance of things that in the original we do not admire!
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Painting

All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for awhile each day in our rooms.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Meditation, Prayer

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.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Perfection

Losses are comparative, imagination only makes them of any moment.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Failures, Mistakes

If a soldier or laborer complains of the hardships of his lot, set him to do nothing
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Soldiers

Those we call the ancients were really new in everything.
Blaise Pascal

Law, without force, is impotent.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Law, Lawyers

Anyone who considers himself in this way will be seized with terror and, discovering that the mass nature has given him supports itself between two abysses of infinity and nothingness, he will tremble in the face of these marvels; and I believe that as his curiosity changes to admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence then search them out with presumption.
For, finally, what is man in nature? He is nothing in comparison with the infinite, and everything in comparison with nothingness, a middle term between all and nothing. He is infinitely severed from comprehending the extremes; the end of things and their principle are for him invincibly hidden in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he arises and the infinity into which he is engulfed.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Mankind, Man

It is superstitious to put one’s hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.
Blaise Pascal

If the nose of Cleopatra had been a little shorter, it would have changed the history of the world.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Trifles, Beauty

The heart has reasons which reason cannot understand.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Instincts, Heart

There are two peculiarities in the truths of religion: a divine beauty which renders them lovely, and a holy majesty which makes them venerable.—And there are two peculiarities in errors: an impiety which renders them horrible, and an impertinence which renders them ridiculous.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Truth

The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Reason

The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinarjr exertions, but by his everyday conduct.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Virtue

Faith affirms many things respecting which the senses are silent, but nothing which they deny.—It is superior to their testimony, but never opposed to it.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Faith

Nature imitates herself. A grain thrown into good ground brings forth fruit; a principle thrown into a good mind brings forth fruit. Everything is created and conducted by the same Master,—the root, the branch, the fruits,—the principles, the consequences.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Nature

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Faith

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Evil

Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.
Blaise Pascal
Topics: Vanity, Curiosity

The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.
Blaise Pascal

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