Blaise Pascal Quotes

If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything.

Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.

There are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.

We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.

Don't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.

Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell.

There is a God-shaped vacuum in every heart.

Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.

Muhammad established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives.

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

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

In difficult times carry something beautiful in your heart.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with your power; And little things as though they were great, since I do them in your name!

Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good-natured. They also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.

You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend.

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 nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference.

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

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true and then show that it is.

Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.

It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs.

I rather live as if God exists to find out that He doesn't than live as if he doesn't exist to find out He does.

What a chimera then is man. What a novelty! What a monster... what a contradiction, what a prodigy

The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.

Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer.

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.

I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.

Happiness is neither within us, nor without us. It is in the union of ourselves with God.

Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.

One-half of the ills of life come because men are unwilling to sit down quietly for thirty minutes to think through all the possible consequences of their acts.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Human life is thus only an endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy.

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

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

What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart." - Blaise Pascal

Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

Faith is a gift of God.