Category Archives: Pascal

If man were happy, the less he were diverted the happier he would be, like the saints and God.

— Pascal

The true function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Pascal

I see the terrifying immensity of the universe which surrounds me, and find myself limited to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am set down here rather than elsewhere, nor why the brief period appointed for my life is assigned to me at this moment rather than another in all the eternity that has gone before and will come after me. On all sides I behold nothing but infinity, in which I am a mere atom, a mere passing shadow that returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I understand least of all is this very death which I cannot escape.

As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I only know that on leaving this world I fall for ever into nothingness or into the hands of a wrathful God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be everlastingly consigned. Such is my condition, full of weakness and uncertainty.

—    Blaise Pascal, Pensées (via here)

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

— Pascal