Blaise Pascal: Citations en anglais (Page 6)

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If we do not secure the foundation, we cannot secure the edifice.”

“Rules for Demonstrations. I. Not to undertake to demonstrate any thing that is so evident of itself that nothing can be given that is clearer to prove it. II. To prove all propositions at all obscure, and to employ in their proof only very evident maxims or propositions already admitted or demonstrated. III. To always mentally substitute definitions in the place of things defined, in order not to be misled by the ambiguity of terms which have been restricted by definitions.”

“You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons… full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire… You are therefore properly the king of desire. …equal in this to the greatest kings of the earth… It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet.”

“As soon as the soul has been made to perceive that a thing can conduct it to that which it loves supremely, it must inevitably embrace it with joy.”

“The best books are those, which those who read them believe they themselves could have written.”

“If, being duke and peer, you would not be contented with my standing uncovered before you, but should also wish that I should esteem you, I should ask you to show me the qualities that merit my esteem. If you did this, you would gain it, and I could not refuse it to you with justice; but if you did not do it, you would be unjust to demand it of me; and assuredly you would not succeed, were you the greatest prince in the world.”

“If they have entered into the spirit if these rules, and if the rules have made sufficient impression on them to become rooted and established in their minds, they will feel how much difference there is between what is said here and what a few logicians may perhaps have written by chance approximating to it in a few passages of their works.”