“Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar and common.”

—  Blaise Pascal

The Art of Persuasion

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Blaise Pascal 144
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Chri… 1623–1662

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“But how shall this love be demonstrated? After what method shall it be expressed? Not by secret musings alone; not by the chanting of religious sonnets alone; not by grateful remembrances of Him — at His table only — but by deeds of love towards those who in a real sense represent Him, because partakers of that nature, our common humanity, which He condescended to assume.”

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“…all earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.”

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Blaise Pascal photo

“One of the principal reasons that diverts those who are entering upon this knowledge so much from the true path which they should follow, is the fancy that they take at the outset that good things are inaccessible, giving them the name great, lofty, elevated, sublime. This destroys everything. I would call them low, common, familiar”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion
Context: One of the principal reasons that diverts those who are entering upon this knowledge so much from the true path which they should follow, is the fancy that they take at the outset that good things are inaccessible, giving them the name great, lofty, elevated, sublime. This destroys everything. I would call them low, common, familiar: these names suit it better; I hate such inflated expressions.

“But in that case politics as well as religion miss their common parlance meanings, and become esoteric terms which scoundrels and secularists alone can decipher.”

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“An irrational fear should never be simply let alone, but should be gradually overcome by familiarity with its fainter forms.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

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