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
When malice has reason on its side, it looks forth bravely, and displays that reason in all its luster. When austerity and self-denial have not realized true happiness, and the soul returns to the dictates of nature, the reaction is fearfully extravagant.
The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.
No soul of high estate can take pleasure in slander. It betrays a weakness.
We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.
Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.
The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as when talking of God.
No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the understanding and the will.
Dans une grande a" me tout est grand. In a great soul everything isgreat.
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us and which touches us so profoundly that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent about it.
Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.
Kind words produce their images on men's souls.
And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been different.
If all persons knew what they said of each other there would not be four friends in the world