I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this: to show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few people understand it. No human science can keep it. Saint Thomas did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they…

To speak of those who have treated of this matter. I admire the boldness with which these persons undertake to speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their first chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature. I should not be astonished at their enterprise, if they were addressing their argument to the faithful; for it is certain that those who have the living faith in…

I reject all other religions. In that way I find an answer to all objections. It is right that a God so pure should only reveal Himself to those whose hearts are purified. Hence this religion is lovable to me, and I find it now sufficiently justified by so divine a morality. But I find more in it. I find it convincing that, since the memory of man has lasted, it was constantly announced to men…

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head (for it is only experience which teaches us that the head is more necessary than feet). But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute. 340. The arithmetical machine produces effects which approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing which would enable us to attribute will to it, as… Read the rest of this passage →

Injustice can come the ridiculousness of the law that the elder gets all. “My friend, you were born on this side of the mountain, it is therefore just that your elder brother gets everything.” “Why do you kill me”? 292. He lives on the other side of the water. 293. “Why do you kill me? What! do you not live on the other side of the water? If you lived on this side, my friend, I should be an…

The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind. — In the one, the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one’s mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost…

That man without faith cannot know the true good, nor justice. All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every…

Miracles enable us to judge of doctrine, and doctrine enables us to judge of miracles. There are false miracles and true. There must be a distinction, in order to know them; otherwise they would be useless. Now they are not useless; on the contrary, they are fundamental. Now the rule which is given to us must be such that it does not destroy the proof which the true miracles give of the truth,…

A letter to incite to the search after God. And then to make people seek Him among the philosophers, sceptics, and dogmatists, who disquiet him who inquires of them. 185. The conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, is to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace. But to will to put it into the mind and heart by force and threats is not to put religion there, but… Read the rest of this passage →

There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs. This is a wonderful one, that it has always been preserved in one Church and one visible assembly of men. There would be too great clearness, if there were only one opinion in this Church. But in order to recognise what is true, one has only to look at what has always existed; for it is certain that truth has always existed, and…

Men blaspheme what they do not know. The Christian religion consists in two points. It is of equal concern to men to know them, and it is equally dangerous to be ignorant of them. And it is equally of God’s mercy that He has given indications of both. And yet they take occasion to conclude that one of these points does not exist, from that which should have caused them to infer the other. The…

On the fact that the Christian religion is not the only religion. — So far is this from being a reason for believing that it is not the true one that, on the contrary, it makes us see that it is so. 590. Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews, true Christians. 591. J. C. Heathens | Mahomet \ / Ignorance of God 592. The falseness of other religions. — They have no…

To prove the two at one stroke, we need only see if the prophecies in one are fulfilled in the other. To examine the prophecies, we must understand them. For if we believe they have only one meaning, it is certain that the Messiah has not come; but if they have two meanings, it is certain that He has come in Jesus Christ. The whole problem then is to know if they have two meanings. That the…

I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe and man without light, left to himself and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert…

It was only yesterday that I was undeceived. Until that time I had laboured under the impression that the disputes in the Sorbonne were vastly important, and deeply affected the interests of religion. The frequent convocations of an assembly so illustrious as that of the Theological Faculty of Paris, attended by so many extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances, led one to form such high…

Of the Geometrical Spirit, by Blaise Pascal Of the Geometrical Spirit Blaise Pascal Translated by O.W. Wright Text is from The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. Of the Geometrical Spirit WE may have three principal objects in the study of truth: one to discover it when it is sought; another to demonstrate it when it is possessed; and a third, to discriminate it from the false when it is…