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
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
Thus we never live, but we hope to live; and always disposing ourselves to be happy, it is inevitable that we never become so.
Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves on this subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among those who do not believe, I make a vast difference between those who strive with all their power to inform themselv
A mere trifle consoles us for a mere trifle distresses us.
The most powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses and reason
People act as though our mission were to secure the triumph of truth, whereas our sole mission is fight for it. The wish to be victorious is so natural that when it clothes itself in the desire for the triumph of truth, the two are often confused, an
Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it
Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master. When we disobey the latter we are punished, when we disobey the former we are fools.
If we would say that man is too insignificant to deserve communion with God, we must indeed be very great to judge of it.
Sleep, you say, is the image of death; for my part I say that it is rather the image of life.
The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great things, indicates a strange inversion.
How hollow and full of ribaldry is the heart of man!
If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.