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Blaise Pascal Quotes


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The last thing that we discover in writing a book is to know what to put at the beginning.
[Books]

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
[Influence]

The main object of the gospel is to establish two principles--the corruption of nature, and the redemption by Jess Christ.

The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able.

The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding.

The mind naturally makes progress, and the will naturally clings to objects; so that for want of right objects, it will attach itself to wrong ones.
[Progress]

The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel.
[Trifles]

The more enlarged is our own mind, the greater number we discover of men of originality. Your commonplace people see no difference between one man and another.

The most powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses and reason.

The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion; the unity which does not depend upon the multitude, is tyranny.

The only shame is to have none.

The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.
[The Present]

The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing.
[One Day]

The present is never the mark of our designs. We use both past and present as our means and instruments, but the future only as our object and aim.

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

The self is hateful.

The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great things, are the marks of a strange inversion.

The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the might of the Spirit of God.

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

The state of man is inconstancy, ennui, anxiety.


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