Blaise Pascal

“Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.”

“Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.”

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

“Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.”

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”

“That we must love one God only is a thing so evident that it does not require miracles to prove it.”

“If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.”

“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”

“Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.”

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”

“The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.”

“Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.”

“Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.”

“The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.”

“If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?”

“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothi...”

“The gospel to me is simply irresistible.”

“The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.”

“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.”

“The self is hateful.”