Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascalwas a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. 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 generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth19 June 1623
CityClermont-Ferrand, France
CountryFrance
Who would desire to have for a friend a man who talks in this fashion? Who would choose him out from others to tell him of his affairs? Who would have recourse to him in affliction? And indeed to what use in life could one put him?
Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.
Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
Force rules the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes use of force
The power of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.
The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.
That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.