That something so obvious as the vanity of the world
should be so little recognized that people find it odd
and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek
greatness; that is most remarkable.
BLAISE PASCAL, Pensées
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
BLAISE PASCAL, Thoughts
One-half of life is admitted by us to be passed in sleep, in which, however it may appear otherwise, we have no perception of truth, and all our feelings are delusions: who knows but the other half of life, in which we think we are awake, is a sleep also, but in some respects different from the other, and from which we wake when we, as we call it, sleep--as a man dreams often that he is dreaming, crowding one dreamy delusion on another.
BLAISE PASCAL, Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects
Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure; it has such a thorough possession of us, that we are prepared to sacrifice life with joy, if it may be talked of.
BLAISE PASCAL, Thoughts of Blaise Pascal
Christian piety annihilates the egotism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it.
BLAISE PASCAL, attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
As the two great sources of our sins are pride and indolence, God has been pleased to make known, in himself, two corresponding means of cure -- his mercy and his justice.
BLAISE PASCAL, Thoughts of Blaise Pascal
Not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and may make advances in morality, but all mankind together are making a continual progress in proportion as the universe grows older; so that the whole human race, during the course of so many ages, may be considered as one man, who never ceases to live and learn.
BLAISE PASCAL, attributed, Day's Collacon
The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution.
BLAISE PASCAL, Discourses on the Condition of the Great
We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real.
BLAISE PASCAL, Pensées
The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity; the majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
BLAISE PASCAL, Thoughts of Blaise Pascal
Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday.
