Blaise Pascal: Trending quotes (page 4)

“Rules for Axioms. I. Not to omit any necessary principle without asking whether it is admittied, however clear and evident it may be. II. Not to demand, in axioms, any but things that are perfectly evident in themselves.”

“Thus he had a double thought: the one by which he acted as king, the other by which he recognized his true state, and that it was accident alone that had placed him in his present condition.”

“These eight rules [above] contain all the precepts for solid and immutable proofs.”

“The whole title by which you possess your property, is not a title of nature but of a human institution.”

“Five [of the above] rules are of absolute necessity, and cannot be dispensed with without essential defect and often without error.”

“Of the truths within our reach… the mind and the heart are as doors by which they are received into the soul, but… few enter by the mind, whilst they are brought in crowds by the rash caprices of the will, without the council of reason.”

“These five rules [above] form all that is necessary to render proofs convincing, immutable, and to say all, geometrical; and the eight rules together render them even more perfect.”

“Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure or ambiguous without definition; Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or already explained.”

“If the public thought elevates you above the generality of men, let the other humble you, and hold you in a perfect equality with all mankind, for this is your natural condition.”

“What would you say of that man who was made king by the error of the people, if he had so far forgotten his natural condition as to imagine that this kingdom was due to him, that he deserved it, and that it belonged to him of right? You would marvel at his stupidity and folly. But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?”

“A doubtful balance is made between truth and pleasure, and… the knowledge of one and the feeling of the other stir up a combat the success of which is very uncertain, since, in order to judge of it, it would be necessary to know all that passes in the innermost spirit of the man, of which man himself is scarcely ever conscious.”

“Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives.”

“Rules necessary for axioms. Not to demand in axioms any but things perfectly evident.”

“Miracle does not always signify miracle.”

“A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.”

“The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play”

“Passion cannot be beautiful without excess; one either loves too much or not enough.”

“The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.”

“Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.”