{ "type": "book", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "title": "Pensees", "slug": "pensees", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees.md", "author": { "name": "Blaise Pascal", "slug": "blaise-pascal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal" }, "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/blaise-pascal/pensees_978-01-4191-564-7.jpg", "quotes_count": 169, "quotes": [ { "id": "dd326e04-6abf-485c-8b82-f0cd7bf62968", "slug": "the-eternal-silence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-eternal-silence", "text": "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "bcf70eeb-756a-42a1-bc80-1f4ab596b2dd", "slug": "man-is-neither", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-is-neither", "text": "Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "b93e102c-e754-4fd1-b57f-0f0fcf213032", "slug": "it-is-not-certain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-not-certain", "text": "It is not certain that everything is uncertain.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "uncertainty", "slug": "uncertainty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/uncertainty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "9f6604d4-3140-4c3e-8079-43b8668a0b81", "slug": "condition-of-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/condition-of-man", "text": "Condition of man: inconstancy, weariness, unrest.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "8be1d2f9-45c9-4bac-b7e7-6e9c5ca839c3", "slug": "when-we-see", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-we-see", "text": "When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man. Whereas those who have good taste, and who seeing a book expect to find a man, are quite surprised to find an author. Plus poetice quam humane locutus es. \"You have spoken more poetically than humanly.\"", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "writing", "slug": "writing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "7ee82033-0e4a-418f-bd6f-fa3cb2a8abcb", "slug": "the-heart-has", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-heart-has", "text": "The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which feels God, and not Reason. This, then, is perfect faith: God felt in the heart.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "7d1deb0b-5569-48bc-9de8-c149f2964d65", "slug": "the-last-thing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-last-thing", "text": "The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "writing", "slug": "writing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "7afe1d01-a785-4c5f-893c-31796b82e5ea", "slug": "all-our-reasoning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/all-our-reasoning", "text": "All our reasoning boils down to yielding to sentiment.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "777bec3d-b598-48a7-b37d-358f2a0497ae", "slug": "who-knows-if-this", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/who-knows-if-this", "text": "Who knows if this other half of life where we think we're awake is not another sleep a little different from the first.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "sleep", "slug": "sleep", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sleep" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VII:_Morality_and_Doctrine_(425-555)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "64c63c1a-e154-478a-ac14-47d531187a84", "slug": "true-morality-makes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/true-morality-makes", "text": "True morality makes fun of morality.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "5bd8c903-caf0-471d-9ea6-74da99a28d6d", "slug": "our-nature-consists", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/our-nature-consists", "text": "Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "4e30cc04-47fc-430b-a81d-78518b1cc334", "slug": "translation-animals-do-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/translation-animals-do-not", "text": "Translation: Animals do not admire one another. A horse does not admire his companion.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "animals", "slug": "animals", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/animals" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "4dc4a30d-e343-4967-ab2d-8dc6c2f63f13", "slug": "cleopatras-nose-had", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/cleopatras-nose-had", "text": "Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" }, { "name": "chance", "slug": "chance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/chance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "26495fcf-6656-4a0c-aa73-b8f92a98181f", "slug": "between-us-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/between-us-and", "text": "Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "13fc082f-937f-4621-ba01-8596cf505f4c", "slug": "to-make-light", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/to-make-light", "text": "To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "0c4ccc8b-30fb-4a1a-ac26-824b1222255f", "slug": "man-is-but", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-is-but", "text": "Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:54" }, { "id": "f650b293-7eb5-485a-b092-a33934bac024", "slug": "we-want-truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-want-truth", "text": "We want truth and find only uncertainty in ourselves.\n\nWe seek happiness and find only wretchedness and death.\n\nWe are incapable of not wanting truth and happiness and are incapable of certainty or happiness.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#1._Table,_etc.", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "ab80fa8c-48c9-4b47-9640-c84db0ee19fc", "slug": "now-if-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/now-if-the", "text": "Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_XI:_The_Prophecies_(693-736)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "8d583305-58f0-4af1-9485-d42eb09b98e7", "slug": "the-two-principles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-two-principles", "text": "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.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "appearances", "slug": "appearances", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/appearances" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Lafuma_Edition", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "3a2d4aaa-4ef4-42dd-a3ca-0e1bdcb5fac9", "slug": "i-would-be-much", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/i-would-be-much", "text": "I would be much more afraid of being wrong and finding out that the Christian religion is true than of being wrong in believing it to be true.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#1._Table,_etc.", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "39dc7a02-2b5e-410c-bf66-1e15f91d1e37", "slug": "man-does-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-does-not", "text": "Man does not know what rank he should occupy. He has obviously gone astray and fallen from his true place, lacking the power to find it again. He looks for it everywhere anxiously and unsuccessfully, in impenetrable darkness.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#1._Table,_etc.", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "1f716432-d752-4b0b-940e-ee348f43c14b", "slug": "whoever-wants-to-know", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/whoever-wants-to-know", "text": "Whoever wants to know man's vanity fully has only to consider the causes and effects of love. The cause is a something I know not what. Corneille. And the effects are frightening. This something I know not what, so insignificant that we cannot recognize it, disturbs the whole earth, princes, armies, the entire world. Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#1._Table,_etc.", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "1507118c-dac5-4635-bd50-d5f7a2887e94", "slug": "thinking-too-little", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/thinking-too-little", "text": "Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "fanaticism", "slug": "fanaticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fanaticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Lafuma_Edition", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:51" }, { "id": "f6dc4219-276a-4453-b4f4-54facbec8309", "slug": "this-internal-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/this-internal-war", "text": "This internal war of reason against the passions has made a division of those who would have peace into two sects. The first would renounce their passions, and become gods; the others would renounce reason, and become brute beasts. But neither can do so, and reason still remains, to condemn the vileness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who abandon themselves to them; and the passions keep always alive in those who would renounce them.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "ee3aa568-379a-4d61-b304-3affb760210f", "slug": "man-must-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-must-not", "text": "Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "ecc3bda6-dd5b-4ba6-8fb3-7bb05f4f87b5", "slug": "there-is-internal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/there-is-internal", "text": "There is internal war in man between reason and the passions. If he had only reason without passions. If he had only passions without reason. But having both, he cannot be without strife, being unable to be at peace with the one without being at war with the other. Thus he is always divided against, and opposed to himself.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "cbf2c005-fc5f-4765-82e7-08e4a06a458c", "slug": "we-cannot-endure", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-cannot-endure", "text": "...we cannot endure being despised, or not being esteemed by any soul; and all the happiness of men consists in this esteem.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "respect", "slug": "respect", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/respect" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "a66eedae-8b99-443a-a019-9c3b786c8028", "slug": "men-are-so-necessarily", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/men-are-so-necessarily", "text": "Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "madness", "slug": "madness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "8396fc06-fe16-4d14-ba46-d6f3f4a273aa", "slug": "man-is-so-made", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-is-so-made", "text": "Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "stupidity", "slug": "stupidity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VII:_Morality_and_Doctrine_(425-555)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "7ace2a14-37ef-4b34-b53f-a714d5a9ec2b", "slug": "the-greatness-of-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-greatness-of-man", "text": "The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is then being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "dignity", "slug": "dignity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dignity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "7841126c-a279-487e-a488-e2556d65ad50", "slug": "all-the-principles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/all-the-principles", "text": "All the principles of skeptics, stoics, atheists, etc., are true. But their conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are also true.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "5f318cac-f598-43c2-a537-54cd94214db5", "slug": "two-things-instruct", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/two-things-instruct", "text": "Two things instruct man about his whole nature; instinct and experience.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "experience", "slug": "experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/experience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "3a0bfa0b-98a7-45eb-9482-915c9c05a719", "slug": "we-have-an-incapacity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-have-an-incapacity", "text": "We have an incapacity of proof, insurmountable by all dogmatism. We have an idea of truth, invincible to all skepticism.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "doubt", "slug": "doubt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "2f0866cf-9560-43b4-bec9-62a9980eb7f6", "slug": "notwithstanding-the-sight", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/notwithstanding-the-sight", "text": "Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "hope", "slug": "hope", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "287a0f6d-7a90-449f-b745-acba6445e118", "slug": "this-twofold-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/this-twofold-nature", "text": "This twofold nature of man is so evident that some have thought that we had two souls. A single subject seemed to them incapable of such sudden variations from unmeasured presumption to a dreadful dejection of heart.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "1b146814-a622-4c84-a5e5-6be89e27d003", "slug": "what-a-chimera", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/what-a-chimera", "text": "What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depositary of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VII:_Morality_and_Doctrine_(425-555)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "0261774c-afd8-4e93-9805-e1146c359583", "slug": "in-faith-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/in-faith-there", "text": "In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VII:_Morality_and_Doctrine_(425-555)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:50" }, { "id": "fc0bf6dc-5f1f-4ebe-b396-bc76c90ef05d", "slug": "nothing-is-so-conformable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/nothing-is-so-conformable", "text": "Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "fb7a7934-f446-4276-83e2-734da081663a", "slug": "i-cannot-imagine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/i-cannot-imagine", "text": "I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "f215bf8c-c415-48af-b52c-e27158a36240", "slug": "if-we-dreamt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/if-we-dreamt", "text": "If we dreamt the same thing every night, it would affect us as much as the objects we see every day. And if the artisan were sure to dream every night for twelve hours' duration that he was king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night that he was an artisan.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "dreams", "slug": "dreams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "eff9c206-f5fa-48d1-8bb6-773cf42d2da2", "slug": "we-find-fault", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-find-fault", "text": "We find fault with perfection itself.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "perfectionism", "slug": "perfectionism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/perfectionism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "eebfc46a-2245-468d-b26e-b8c791b0e73f", "slug": "why-are-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/why-are-you", "text": "Why are you killing me for your own benefit? I am unarmed.' 'Why, do you not live on the other side of the water? My friend, if you lived on this side, I should be a murderer, but since you live on the other side, I am a brave man and it is right.'", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "war", "slug": "war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war" }, { "name": "violence", "slug": "violence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/violence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_V:_Justice_and_the_Reason_of_Effects_(291-338)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "e7b097f7-016c-4d5b-90e5-9025d3ec70e9", "slug": "montaigne-is-wrong", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/montaigne-is-wrong", "text": "Montaigne is wrong. Custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason or justice.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" }, { "name": "habits", "slug": "habits", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/habits" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "e7120877-11a2-43ae-bfe7-6d40746affc0", "slug": "thought-constitutes-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/thought-constitutes-the", "text": "Thought constitutes the greatness of man.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "d7c052cd-3c85-45ec-afbd-e8565c41ac45", "slug": "faith-indeed-tells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/faith-indeed-tells", "text": "Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "ce0c9641-213d-4889-a924-d432e2450781", "slug": "instinct-and-reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/instinct-and-reason", "text": "Instinct and reason, marks of two natures.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "c517ea5a-1d6e-440f-9c80-bcefa3ca561c", "slug": "memory-is-necessary", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/memory-is-necessary", "text": "Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "memory", "slug": "memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory" }, { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "b1e9caa3-2a39-40a6-b42b-17a318eef317", "slug": "it-is-not-from", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-not-from", "text": "It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "dignity", "slug": "dignity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dignity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "a988654a-c665-4be2-bb32-63d8b27a0c1b", "slug": "a-strange-justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/a-strange-justice", "text": "A strange justice that is bounded by a river! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_V:_Justice_and_the_Reason_of_Effects_(291-338)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "90f60216-5997-4716-ad31-034846c47e76", "slug": "justice-is-as-much", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/justice-is-as-much", "text": "Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" }, { "name": "fashion", "slug": "fashion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fashion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_V:_Justice_and_the_Reason_of_Effects_(291-338)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "8d501865-c1c5-4ea2-985f-2bf45436c5ce", "slug": "it-is-true", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-true", "text": "It is true that there must be inequality among men; but if this be conceded, the door is opened not only to the highest power, but to the highest tyranny.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "7316f677-10bd-4b97-b16c-9608fa6a6a1b", "slug": "wisdom-leads-us-back", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/wisdom-leads-us-back", "text": "Wisdom leads us back to childhood.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 404, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "wisdom", "slug": "wisdom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wisdom" }, { "name": "childhood", "slug": "childhood", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/childhood" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "7189b80c-6123-427c-92e3-c4fd422d986e", "slug": "reason-commands-us-far", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/reason-commands-us-far", "text": "Reason commands us far more than imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "56aaae76-3fd6-48e0-8754-4050398824c2", "slug": "contradiction-is-a-bad", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/contradiction-is-a-bad", "text": "Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain are contradicted; several things which are false pass without contradiction. Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "4af872eb-9fc4-497f-bfb2-7c91191fad4f", "slug": "justice-without-might", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/justice-without-might", "text": "Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" }, { "name": "strength", "slug": "strength", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/strength" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_V:_Justice_and_the_Reason_of_Effects_(291-338)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "48be4e64-fe87-445c-a10d-d8ab100e5d42", "slug": "life-is-a-dream", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/life-is-a-dream", "text": "Life is a dream a little less inconstant.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "dreams", "slug": "dreams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "42be2aa6-c6a1-4448-b5f3-d2776470eeec", "slug": "the-strength-of-a-mans", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-strength-of-a-mans", "text": "The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" }, { "name": "character", "slug": "character", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "419173bd-040e-4830-afba-b115bcee49cf", "slug": "all-good-maxims", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/all-good-maxims", "text": "All good maxims are in the world. We only need apply them.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "wisdom", "slug": "wisdom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wisdom" }, { "name": "taking action", "slug": "taking-action", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/taking-action" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "3045680a-81e8-4881-9cf2-3c7543d37b32", "slug": "we-do-not-sustain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-do-not-sustain", "text": "We do not sustain ourselves in virtue by our own strength, but by the balancing of two opposed vices, just as we remain upright amidst two contrary gales. Remove one of the vices, and we fall into the other.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "2f02cf63-ba99-4a6c-b7de-fd50f118c961", "slug": "the-knowledge-of-god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-knowledge-of-god", "text": "The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_IV:_On_the_Means_of_the_Belief_(242-290)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "2f00d75e-b6b3-4c0b-a0bd-2ac1011076e4", "slug": "when-we-would", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-we-would", "text": "When we would pursue virtues to their extremes on either side, vices present themselves insensibly there, in their insensible journeys towards the infinitely little; and vices present themselves in a crowd towards the infinitely great, so that we lose ourselves in them, and no longer see virtues.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "2abf0044-a9c1-433d-bb35-7397b997a8dc", "slug": "the-licentious-tell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-licentious-tell", "text": "The licentious tell men of orderly lives that they stray from nature's path, while they themselves follow it; as people in a ship think those move who are on the shore. On all sides the language is similar. We must have a fixed point in order to judge. The harbour decides for those who are in a ship; but where shall we find a harbour in morality?", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "25cd8562-893c-44c6-a197-f8b99b67e5b2", "slug": "doubtless-there-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/doubtless-there-are", "text": "Doubtless there are natural laws; but good reason once corrupted has corrupted all.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_V:_Justice_and_the_Reason_of_Effects_(291-338)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "22488e90-9373-4cfa-88ab-e7da02d8aceb", "slug": "thought-all-the-dignity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/thought-all-the-dignity", "text": "Thought.—All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is therefore by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects! But what is this thought? How foolish it is!", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "dignity", "slug": "dignity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dignity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "20dcaa2a-5406-4aeb-ac9e-b05cf0da575f", "slug": "chance-gives-rise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/chance-gives-rise", "text": "Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them. A thought has escaped me. I wanted to write it down. I write instead, that it has escaped me.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "writing", "slug": "writing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "1923001c-fd27-474a-8da7-5b707ab058f4", "slug": "it-is-not-good", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-not-good", "text": "It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one wants.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "07e43a59-98c4-4059-8918-a68c71d60e29", "slug": "discourses-on-humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/discourses-on-humility", "text": "Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain, and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism. We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "hypocrisy", "slug": "hypocrisy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_VI:_The_Philosophers_(339-424)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "06324b10-699e-4bbf-8340-dff9da00a597", "slug": "equality-of-possessions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/equality-of-possessions", "text": "Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" }, { "name": "strength", "slug": "strength", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/strength" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_V:_Justice_and_the_Reason_of_Effects_(291-338)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:49" }, { "id": "ff70c233-f7c4-4a38-bca5-e494d3b5dc67", "slug": "admiration-spoils-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/admiration-spoils-all", "text": "Admiration spoils all from infancy. Ah! How well said! Ah! How well done! How well-behaved he is! etc.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "upbringing", "slug": "upbringing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/upbringing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "ea25f42c-49fc-4d09-87d1-8c207f1211a3", "slug": "we-are-fools", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-are-fools", "text": "We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build fine houses, etc.? We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "e9dab134-a74f-4229-b556-aed0041579a2", "slug": "it-is-a-horrible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-a-horrible", "text": "It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "loss", "slug": "loss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loss" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "da58ce8e-851a-4484-8338-fa781702f76c", "slug": "art-thou-less", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/art-thou-less", "text": "Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "slavery", "slug": "slavery", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/slavery" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "d335248a-9783-477a-aa56-6c0d5e848fd4", "slug": "he-who-will", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/he-who-will", "text": "He who will know fully the vanity of man has only to consider the causes and effects of love.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "cc8174a1-4349-48a5-9700-978285e4ef4d", "slug": "pride-takes-such", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/pride-takes-such", "text": "Pride takes such natural possession of us in the midst of our woes, errors, etc. We even lose our life with joy, provided people talk of it.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "pride", "slug": "pride", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pride" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "bb10ec8f-9188-4b6d-8ee8-b8911c136954", "slug": "we-do-not-content", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-do-not-content", "text": "We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. ...we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. ...For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honor.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "b932a83e-f7c5-4f05-8efe-e3e9bcfebc2e", "slug": "we-do-not-rest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-do-not-rest", "text": "We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "the present", "slug": "the-present", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-present" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "b3533178-17c1-4464-8e3d-f063eb30f655", "slug": "we-are-so-presumptuous", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-are-so-presumptuous", "text": "We are so presumptuous that we would wish to be known by all the world, even by people who shall come after, when we shall be no more; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six neighbors delights and contents us.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "abbb19d0-6f38-4133-81bf-8cd5e4f28d01", "slug": "they-say-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/they-say-that", "text": "They say that eclipses foretoken misfortune, because misfortunes are common, so that, as evil happens so often, they often foretell it; whereas if they said that they predict good fortune, they would often be wrong. They attribute good fortune only to rare conjunctions of the heavens; so they seldom fail in prediction.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "a15bc3d7-e93b-4173-936b-99bde194df2a", "slug": "this-is-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/this-is-what", "text": "This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and I see only darkness everywhere. Nature presents to me nothing which is not matter of doubt and concern. If I saw nothing there which revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied; wherefore I have a hundred times wished that if a God maintains nature, she should testify to Him unequivocally, and that, if the signs she gives are deceptive, she should suppress them altogether; that she should say everything or nothing, that I might see which cause I ought to follow. Whereas in my present state, ignorant of what I am or of what I ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart inclines wholly to know where is the true good, in order to follow it; nothing would be too dear to me for eternity.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "doubt", "slug": "doubt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "9e40909f-fec5-47e0-88f3-586e83ff1b9e", "slug": "to-be-happy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/to-be-happy", "text": "To be happy man would have to make himself immortal; but, not being able to do so, it has occurred to him to prevent himself from thinking of death.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" }, { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "9807fea1-6c53-4f40-881b-25c3798cd28f", "slug": "vanity-is-so-anchored", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/vanity-is-so-anchored", "text": "Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags, and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it …", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "952c8f3e-a0c0-44b9-9401-ec3a6e88d71d", "slug": "it-is-a-great", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-a-great", "text": "...it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at least an indispensable duty to seek when we are in such doubt; and thus the doubter who does not seek is altogether completely unhappy and completely wrong. And if besides this he is easy and content, professes to be so, and indeed boasts of it; if it is this state itself which is the subject of his joy and vanity, I have no words to describe so silly a creature.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "doubt", "slug": "doubt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "927b01d7-d95b-46ef-9414-bb88849c7d9f", "slug": "when-i-commenced", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-i-commenced", "text": "When I commenced the study of man... I thought at least to find many companions in the study of man, and that it was the true study which is suited to him. I have been deceived; still fewer study it than geometry. It is only from the want of knowing how to study this that we seek the other studies. But is it not that even here is not the knowledge which man should have, and that for the purpose of happiness it is better for him not to know himself?", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "8293dd68-af7d-4344-aeca-82bbf96bb31e", "slug": "let-us-imagine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/let-us-imagine", "text": "Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "7d363319-618d-4712-8313-eb7089e99941", "slug": "we-run-carelessly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-run-carelessly", "text": "We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "78397047-9159-49b8-b17f-58834a59756c", "slug": "the-great-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-great-and", "text": "The great and the humble have the same misfortunes, the same griefs, the same passions; but the one is at the top of the wheel, and the other near the center, and so less disturbed by the same revolutions.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" }, { "name": "equality", "slug": "equality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/equality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "7787585b-ed24-4cd4-9954-18d8d30e2431", "slug": "it-is-incomprehensible", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-incomprehensible", "text": "It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that He should not exist; that the soul should be joined to the body, and that we should have no soul; that the world should be created, and that it should not be created, etc.; that original sin should be, and that it should not be.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "64f9a8b0-6236-4c50-a03c-7ed759caba2d", "slug": "as-men-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/as-men-are", "text": "As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "63cdcb1f-af84-4b08-a54a-617e11d8b159", "slug": "the-last-act", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-last-act", "text": "The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for ever.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "6203bd26-08bd-4023-aab8-46f7f224e2bb", "slug": "when-i-consider", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-i-consider", "text": "When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me?", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "568431c9-ec38-4d61-a3a3-01f4fadc38a8", "slug": "noble-deeds-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/noble-deeds-are", "text": "Noble deeds are most estimable when hidden.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "4c4f06ce-1c43-43dc-a9b3-af5d5a545dc1", "slug": "kings-are-surrounded", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/kings-are-surrounded", "text": "...kings are surrounded with persons who are wonderfully attentive in taking care that the king be not alone and in a state to think of himself, knowing well that he will be miserable, king though he be, if he meditate on self.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "48325945-0107-43ea-a512-bdb3caa1fb26", "slug": "man-is-obviously", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-is-obviously", "text": "Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now, the order of thought is to begin with self, and with its Author and its end. Now, of what does the world think? Never of this, but of dancing, playing the lute, singing, making verses, running at the ring, etc., fighting, making oneself king, without thinking what it is to be a king and what to be a man.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "dignity", "slug": "dignity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dignity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "362746ff-6644-45db-9c9f-7fdee0f29100", "slug": "make-religion-attractive", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/make-religion-attractive", "text": "Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "33459c43-3c6f-4d31-a430-ff436b543043", "slug": "anyone-who-found", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/anyone-who-found", "text": "Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "2cd3436f-1cee-4ea9-96ac-e81c4d6fe713", "slug": "if-our-condition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/if-our-condition", "text": "If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "29c0c070-1f07-4b29-8a2d-3fc4186c33e9", "slug": "how-wonderful-it-is-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/how-wonderful-it-is-that", "text": "How wonderful it is that a thing so evident as the vanity of the world is so little known, that it is a strange and surprising thing to say that it is foolish to seek greatness!", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "0d55c956-5fbf-4cf2-a941-fc7b7b708691", "slug": "the-charm-of-fame", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-charm-of-fame", "text": "The charm of fame is so great, that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fame", "slug": "fame", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fame" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "03c553ac-0ef8-45d8-bb6e-b84340395fcc", "slug": "there-are-two", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/there-are-two", "text": "...there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "029ae442-0a0e-4adf-bb89-ff7f4ee6b2ae", "slug": "nothing-is-so-important", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/nothing-is-so-important", "text": "Nothing is so important to man as his own state, nothing is so formidable to him as eternity; and thus it is not natural that there should be men indifferent to the loss of their existence, and to the perils of everlasting suffering. They are quite different with regard to all other things. They are afraid of mere trifles; they foresee them; they feel them. And this same man who spends so many days and nights in rage and despair for the loss of office, or for some imaginary insult to his honor, is the very one who knows without anxiety and without emotion that he will lose all by death. It is a monstrous thing to see in the same heart and at the same time this sensibility to trifles and this strange insensibility to the greatest objects. It is an incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber, which indicates as its cause an all-powerful force.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_III:_On_the_Necessity_of_the_Wager_(184-241)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "01f1ddfe-918c-4a99-83ac-f32ad2dbb9ea", "slug": "we-know-ourselves", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-know-ourselves", "text": "We know ourselves so little, that many think they are about to die when they are well, and many think they are well when they are near death...", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:48" }, { "id": "f962a8ea-5bb6-425c-a844-cc1a123fd281", "slug": "when-our-passion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-our-passion", "text": "When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our duty; for example, we like a book and read it, when we ought to be doing something else. Now, to remind ourselves of our duty, we must set ourselves a task we dislike; we then plead that we have something else to do, and by this means remember our duty.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "duty", "slug": "duty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/duty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "f5f87ea7-0e7e-4385-bd88-af735f1fc563", "slug": "the-most-important", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-most-important", "text": "The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling; chance decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters. ...We choose our callings according as we hear this or that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love truth and hate folly. ...It is custom then which... constrains nature. But sometimes nature gains the ascendancy, and preserves man's instinct, in spite of all custom, good or bad.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "work", "slug": "work", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work" }, { "name": "habits", "slug": "habits", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/habits" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "f0a2c6a9-6c04-4cd9-9fc4-ff6fcef12d0e", "slug": "there-are-different", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/there-are-different", "text": "There are different degrees in this aversion to truth; but all may perhaps be said to have it in some degree, because it is inseparable from self-love. It is this false delicacy which makes those who are under the necessity of reproving others choose so many windings and middle courses to avoid offense. They must lessen our faults, appear to excuse them, intersperse praises and evidence of love and esteem. Despite all this, the medicine does not cease to be bitter to self-love. It takes as little as it can, always with disgust, and often with a secret spite against those who administer it. Hence it happens that if any have some interest in being loved by us, they are averse to render us a service which they know to be disagreeable. They treat us as we wish to be treated. We hate the truth, and they hide it from us. We desire flattery, and they flatter us. We like to be deceived, and they deceive us.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "eb9a0e96-8eb6-4124-985b-d7b71ef53197", "slug": "a-mere-trifle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/a-mere-trifle", "text": "A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "sadness", "slug": "sadness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sadness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "ea91188e-e269-4d0d-8611-076567cc26f4", "slug": "human-life-is-thus", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/human-life-is-thus", "text": "Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" }, { "name": "hypocrisy", "slug": "hypocrisy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "e71abd28-cd6f-4063-94a2-e0e5447ec253", "slug": "without-amusement-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/without-amusement-there", "text": "Without amusement there is no joy; with amusement there is no sadness.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "sadness", "slug": "sadness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sadness" }, { "name": "joy", "slug": "joy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/joy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "e31d56a7-63be-4333-b06d-0b4e2edf2892", "slug": "the-imagination-enlarges", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-imagination-enlarges", "text": "The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as when talking of God.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "e2b7f81f-c77c-49ae-8c66-79200e401304", "slug": "nothing-is-so-insufferable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/nothing-is-so-insufferable", "text": "Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "boredom", "slug": "boredom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/boredom" }, { "name": "despair", "slug": "despair", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/despair" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "e010a798-c6c4-4401-a6cc-d0a30dff3750", "slug": "diversion-when-i-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/diversion-when-i-have", "text": "Diversion.—When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.\n\nBut on further consideration, when, after finding the cause of all our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" }, { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "dffb8c17-4816-4de6-8445-af64fa82c4fc", "slug": "truly-it-is-an-evil", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/truly-it-is-an-evil", "text": "Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil... to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others to deceive us; we do not think it fair that they should be held in higher esteem by us than they deserve; it is not then fair that we should deceive them, and should wish them to esteem us more highly than we deserve.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "db41e1bd-b63f-451c-adb6-dc017cef0229", "slug": "things-which-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/things-which-have", "text": "Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our imagination magnifies into a mountain.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "d7100a3b-f409-48fd-8b5e-21c659a22e7e", "slug": "when-we-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-we-are", "text": "When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "d443d432-6d10-42a2-9e83-c7fbb4970c6d", "slug": "how-useless-is-painting", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/how-useless-is-painting", "text": "How useless is painting, which attracts admiration by the resemblance of things, the originals of which we do not admire!", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "ce15532d-616e-4545-b9c3-de2d74f41f59", "slug": "we-do-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/we-do-not", "text": "We do not believe ourselves to be exactly sharing in the vices of the vulgar, when we see that we are sharing in those of great men; and yet we do not observe that in these matters they are ordinary men. We hold on to them by the same end by which they hold on to the rabble; for, however exalted they are, they are still united at some point to the lowest of men. They are not suspended in the air, quite removed from our society. No, no; if they are greater than we, it is because their heads are higher; but their feet are as low as ours. They are all on the same level, and rest on the same earth; and by that extremity they are as low as we are, as the meanest folk, as infants, and as the beasts.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "equality", "slug": "equality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/equality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "cc4de0e6-b82e-4850-af32-306bc013353d", "slug": "if-all-men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/if-all-men", "text": "...if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "friendship", "slug": "friendship", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/friendship" }, { "name": "gossip", "slug": "gossip", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/gossip" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "ca4ee88d-d213-4230-a20f-f93ed945a5de", "slug": "it-is-a-deplorable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-a-deplorable", "text": "It is a deplorable thing to see all men deliberating on means alone, and not on the end.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "purpose", "slug": "purpose", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/purpose" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "c980bfc0-c0ed-4993-9c9b-6b9b19f40f89", "slug": "put-the-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/put-the-worlds", "text": "Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipice below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "c5f09130-a809-49ae-9e46-a2b79dcfc0f6", "slug": "after-all-he-is-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/after-all-he-is-only", "text": "...after all he is only a man, that is to say capable of little and of much, of all and of nothing; he is neither angel nor brute, but man.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "c45a9414-aa97-4f75-984a-201087e4708a", "slug": "thus-passes-away", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/thus-passes-away", "text": "Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us. And even if we should see ourselves sufficiently sheltered on all sides, weariness of its own accord would not fail to arise from the depths of the heart wherein it has its natural roots, and to fill the mind with its poison.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "boredom", "slug": "boredom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/boredom" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "c3e66c8d-21ff-4fe2-a45b-e8f01bf49b3f", "slug": "things-have-different", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/things-have-different", "text": "Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "c0e5498b-3156-40ee-b1bb-2396a3963026", "slug": "time-heals-griefs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/time-heals-griefs", "text": "Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "ac6f2511-1851-495a-92b0-40f535ec22e9", "slug": "imagination-this-arrogant-power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/imagination-this-arrogant-power", "text": "Imagination.—This arrogant power, the enemy of reason, who likes to rule and dominate it, has established in man a second nature to show how all-powerful she is. She makes men happy and sad, healthy and sick, rich and poor; she compels reason to believe, doubt, and deny; she blunts the senses, or quickens them; she has her fools and sages; and nothing vexes us more than to see that she fills her devotees with a satisfaction far more full and entire than does reason.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "9cca4448-2fda-478b-9641-083f0ed88ae0", "slug": "what-is-it", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/what-is-it", "text": "What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves? And when they are in disgrace and sent back to their country houses, where they lack neither wealth nor servants to help them on occasion, they do not fail to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents them from thinking of themselves.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "99d70837-1888-4285-9443-2ceeb900bf82", "slug": "the-struggle-alone", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-struggle-alone", "text": "The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. ...It is the same in play, and the same in the search for truth. In disputes we like to see the clash of opinions, but not at all to contemplate truth when found. ...So in the passions, there is pleasure in seeing the collision of two contraries; but when one acquires the mastery, it becomes only brutality. We never seek things for themselves, but for the search.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "8460d548-f674-4b2b-92d0-5cfdde4afbe0", "slug": "justice-and-truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/justice-and-truth", "text": "Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they either crush it, or lean all round, more on the false than on the true.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "7ee2b32b-7758-4c84-9ca8-ae7d0276dd21", "slug": "there-are-some", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/there-are-some", "text": "...there are some people who lie for the mere sake of lying.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "7cb3eb9a-26e3-4864-a9f0-be37d76a8280", "slug": "how-much-greater", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/how-much-greater", "text": "How much greater confidence has an advocate, retained with a large fee, in the justice of his cause! How much better does his bold manner make his case appear to the judges, deceived as they are by appearances! How ludicrous is reason, blown with a breath in every direction!", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "money", "slug": "money", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money" }, { "name": "appearances", "slug": "appearances", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/appearances" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "78b5d8b8-1e29-4212-9df5-ec7e42d14a8f", "slug": "the-will-is-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-will-is-one", "text": "The will is one of the chief factors in belief, not that it creates belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect in which we look at them. The will, which prefers one aspect to another, turns away the mind from considering the qualities of all that it does not like to see; and thus the mind, moving in accord with the will, stops to consider the aspect which it likes, and so judges by what it sees.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "789cb7e8-328a-4f7c-89db-82ff172d9ada", "slug": "custom-is-our", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/custom-is-our", "text": "Custom is our nature. He who is accustomed to the faith believes in it, can no longer fear hell, and believes in nothing else. He who is accustomed to believe that the king is terrible … etc. Who doubts then that our soul, being accustomed to see number, space, motion, believes that and nothing else?", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "habits", "slug": "habits", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/habits" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "749759e4-a038-4db5-b355-4014552835fe", "slug": "the-justest-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-justest-man", "text": "The justest man in the world is not allowed to be judge in his own cause.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "681ff1e2-5eb1-4903-b18c-f4b07452cb8e", "slug": "nature-gives-us-passions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/nature-gives-us-passions", "text": "Nature gives us... passions and desires suitable to our present state. We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves...", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "5bdac508-8db1-4f2c-a0f9-37d003670d6f", "slug": "self-love-the-nature-of-self-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/self-love-the-nature-of-self-love", "text": "Self-love.—The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to love self only and consider self only. But what will man do? He cannot prevent this object that he loves from being full of faults and wants. He wants to be great, and he sees himself small. He wants to be happy, and he sees himself miserable. He wants to be perfect, and he sees himself full of imperfections. He wants to be the object of love and esteem among men, and he sees that his faults merit only their hatred and contempt. This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in him the most unrighteous and criminal passion that can be imagined; for he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which reproves him, and which convinces him of his faults. He would annihilate it, but, unable to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it as far as possible in his own knowledge and in that of others; that is to say, he devotes all his attention to hiding his faults both from others and from himself, and he cannot endure either that others should point them out to him, or that they should see them.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "selfishness", "slug": "selfishness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/selfishness" }, { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "553fcd28-8095-4018-b09f-c8a6cf4be7d6", "slug": "a-king-attended", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/a-king-attended", "text": "...a king attended with every pleasure he can feel, if he be without diversion, and be left to consider and reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he will necessarily fall into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which may happen, and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so that if he be without what is called diversion, he is unhappy, and more unhappy than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts himself.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "boredom", "slug": "boredom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/boredom" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "536ddffe-4be6-4974-87d3-99479268d365", "slug": "imagination-it-is-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/imagination-it-is-that", "text": "Imagination.—It is that deceitful part in man, that mistress of error and falsity, the more deceptive, that she is not always so; for she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible rule of falsehood. But being most generally false, she gives no sign of her nature, impressing the same character on the true and the false. I do not speak of fools, I speak of the wisest men; and it is among them that the imagination has the great gift of persuasion. Reason protests in vain; it cannot set a true value on things.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "5300b98f-8a7f-4d3a-a9b1-cf33b2db3ac1", "slug": "our-magistrates-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/our-magistrates-have", "text": "Our magistrates have known well this mystery. Their red robes, the ermine in which they wrap themselves like furry cats, the courts in which they administer justice, the fleurs-de-lis, and all such august apparel were necessary; if the physicians had not their cassocks and their mules, if the doctors had not their square caps and their robes four times too wide, they would never have duped the world, which cannot resist so original an appearance. If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would of itself be venerable enough. But having only imaginary knowledge, they must employ those silly tools that strike the imagination with which they have to deal; and thereby in fact they inspire respect.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "appearances", "slug": "appearances", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/appearances" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "50857f59-2b36-4c38-ab8d-36712d0b07bb", "slug": "i-have-my-foggy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/i-have-my-foggy", "text": "I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. I sometimes struggle against luck, the glory of mastering it makes me master it gaily; whereas I am sometimes surfeited in the midst of good fortune.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "4b3301ad-6ebb-492d-975f-0076fc1898fd", "slug": "imagination-cannot-make", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/imagination-cannot-make", "text": "Imagination cannot make fools wise, but it makes them happy, as against reason, which only makes its friends wretched: one covers them with glory, the other with shame.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "45745d6c-f648-445d-835a-6b9149e04b8e", "slug": "he-who-would", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/he-who-would", "text": "He who would follow reason only would be deemed foolish by the generality of men. We must judge by the opinion of the majority of mankind. Because it has pleased them, we must work all day for pleasures seen to be imaginary; and after sleep has refreshed our tired reason, we must forthwith start up and rush after phantoms, and suffer the impressions of this mistress of the world.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "3993a917-07af-4899-9d54-7f351ea6da03", "slug": "those-who-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/those-who-have", "text": "Those who have a lively imagination are a great deal more pleased with themselves than the wise can reasonably be. They look down upon men with haughtiness; they argue with boldness and confidence, others with fear and diffidence; and this gaiety of countenance often gives them the advantage in the opinion of the hearers, such favor have the imaginary wise in the eyes of judges of like nature. Imagination cannot make fools wise; but she can make them happy, to the envy of reason which can only make its friends miserable; the one covers them with glory, the other with shame. What but this faculty of imagination dispenses reputation, awards respect and veneration to persons, works, laws, and the great? How insufficient are all the riches of the earth without her consent!", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "340024b2-64da-496d-9275-829dd932ad76", "slug": "parents-fear-lest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/parents-fear-lest", "text": "Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade away. What kind of nature is that which is subject to decay? Custom is a second nature which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "habits", "slug": "habits", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/habits" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "33c41513-35d9-4411-a06c-fba9dddd450f", "slug": "thus-when-they", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/thus-when-they", "text": "Thus, when they [others] discover only the imperfections and vices which we really have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is not they who cause them; they rather do us good, since they help us to free ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these imperfections. We ought not to be angry at their knowing our faults and despising us; it is but right that they should know us for what we are, and should despise us, if we are contemptible.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "2f1f1f49-18ed-4f34-8d70-549063598dd1", "slug": "it-is-natural", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-is-natural", "text": "It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "2dd18f6c-e30d-4ad2-a204-b91b67fe83de", "slug": "how-shall-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/how-shall-one", "text": "...how shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. All that is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress. All that has been weak can never become absolutely strong. We say in vain, \"He has grown, he has changed\"; he is also the same.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "29ee7bae-1597-41b7-80c4-ad2723080ddd", "slug": "but-will-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/but-will-you", "text": "But will you say what object has he in all this? The pleasure of bragging to-morrow among his friends that he has played better than another. So others sweat in their own rooms to show to the learned that they have solved a problem in algebra, which no one had hitherto been able to solve. Many more expose themselves to extreme perils, in my opinion as foolishly, in order to boast afterwords that they have captured a town. Lastly, others wear themselves out in studying all these things, not in order to become wiser, but only in order to prove that they know them; and these are the most senseless of the band, since they are so, knowingly, whereas one may suppose of the others, that if they knew it, they would no longer be foolish.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" }, { "name": "vanity", "slug": "vanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/vanity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:47" }, { "id": "f5015917-b5c2-433a-8b10-321934d4caf9", "slug": "the-understanding-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-understanding-and", "text": "The understanding and the feelings are moulded by intercourse; the understanding and feelings are corrupted by intercourse. Thus good or bad society improves or corrupts them. It is, then, all-important to know how to choose in order to improve and not to corrupt them; and we cannot make this choice, if they be not already improved and not corrupted. Thus a circle is formed, and those are fortunate who escape it.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "friendship", "slug": "friendship", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/friendship" }, { "name": "relationships", "slug": "relationships", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/relationships" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "ef068958-c6d3-450a-a4cd-5caebbe4684a", "slug": "the-greater-intellect", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-greater-intellect", "text": "The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "intelligence", "slug": "intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "eac0604b-82eb-4b21-9a5d-cd1612c7f20d", "slug": "there-are-then", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/there-are-then", "text": "There are then two kinds of intellect: the one able to penetrate acutely and deeply into the conclusions of given premises, and this is the precise intellect; the other able to comprehend a great number of premises without confusing them, and this is the mathematical intellect. The one has force and exactness, the other comprehension. Now the one quality can exist without the other; the intellect can be strong and narrow, and can also be comprehensive and weak.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "intelligence", "slug": "intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "e8e1c677-1efe-43c8-8193-bbbdbfa24d27", "slug": "eloquence-is-an-art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/eloquence-is-an-art", "text": "Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "words", "slug": "words", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words" }, { "name": "persuasion", "slug": "persuasion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/persuasion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "e6a548ce-95c2-4f4c-9150-de8b5cbd4653", "slug": "when-we-read", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-we-read", "text": "When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reading", "slug": "reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "d913fd38-28b2-4a17-8e4d-6fda17dc5c84", "slug": "people-are-generally", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/people-are-generally", "text": "People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "persuasion", "slug": "persuasion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/persuasion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "d41b2873-8ff1-4bcf-9218-fd715d54194f", "slug": "too-much-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/too-much-and", "text": "Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "alcohol", "slug": "alcohol", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/alcohol" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "c5e280c8-dd11-49ea-8693-badf4381f22f", "slug": "do-you-wish", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/do-you-wish", "text": "Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "silence", "slug": "silence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "c328318b-db68-471f-908b-661428de6bcb", "slug": "since-we-cannot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/since-we-cannot", "text": "Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former. And the world feels this and does so; for the world is often a good judge.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "a9ba86f7-0fc3-4346-b8a8-b8043fa954ac", "slug": "knowledge-of-physical", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/knowledge-of-physical", "text": "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.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "a69466b1-3016-4911-a049-75a5318e99f0", "slug": "when-a-natural", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-a-natural", "text": "When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. ...such community of intellect that we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "literature", "slug": "literature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "8fecb75a-7aa3-4173-9f70-5cfd89132366", "slug": "man-loves-malice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-loves-malice", "text": "Man loves malice, but not against one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "jealousy", "slug": "jealousy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/jealousy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "87c70073-a949-43ab-9705-9a3759607e81", "slug": "the-same-meaning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/the-same-meaning", "text": "The same meaning changes with the words which express it. Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "words", "slug": "words", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "7efad0f7-f269-4c5e-9763-545cea668699", "slug": "certain-authors-speaking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/certain-authors-speaking", "text": "Certain authors, speaking of their works, say, \"My book,\" \"My commentary,\" \"My history,\" etc. They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own, and always have \"My house\" on their tongue. They would do better to say, \"Our book,\" \"Our commentary,\" \"Our history,\" etc., because there is in them usually more of other people's than their own.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "writing", "slug": "writing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "6cd407c6-99a1-42a7-931a-f4b4e25f1f95", "slug": "it-eloquence-consists", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/it-eloquence-consists", "text": "It [eloquence] consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to establish between the head and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts and the expressions which we employ. ...We must put ourselves in the place of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our own heart... We ought to restrict ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and natural, and not to magnify that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to the subject, and there must be in it nothing of excess or defect.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "words", "slug": "words", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words" }, { "name": "persuasion", "slug": "persuasion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/persuasion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "68f0f54d-e297-42bb-be52-82523bf75a14", "slug": "for-after-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/for-after-all", "text": "For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "64ad8bc2-9e30-4e08-8e07-764685ae598b", "slug": "no-one-is-offended", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/no-one-is-offended", "text": "...no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "4dcba128-7036-49cd-807e-3dd04d8b3e28", "slug": "epictetus-goes-much", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/epictetus-goes-much", "text": "Epictetus goes much further when he asks: Why do we not lose our temper if someone tells us that we have a headache, while we do lose it if someone says there is anything wrong with our arguments or our choice?", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "pride", "slug": "pride", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pride" }, { "name": "anger", "slug": "anger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/anger" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "47649d6e-ac52-4142-8c07-5d6ad8d5b18b", "slug": "those-who-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/those-who-are", "text": "Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight, and are not used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles, and being unable to see at a glance.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "46777d51-cc3f-4b47-a7d4-7797b5967f8a", "slug": "when-we-wish", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/when-we-wish", "text": "When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "persuasion", "slug": "persuasion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/persuasion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "318f1997-e93f-41b6-84ad-3da0d66a6425", "slug": "one-must-know", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/one-must-know", "text": "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.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "29f208b6-a37c-45ff-b104-7f41126eb8d9", "slug": "man-is-to-himself", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/man-is-to-himself", "text": "Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "2321dfa3-c736-4a4a-879d-e07eb337c3da", "slug": "poetical-beauty-we-know", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/poetical-beauty-we-know", "text": "Poetical beauty. ...We know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists of proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists of healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" }, { "name": "poetry", "slug": "poetry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "1f73630f-bd33-4803-9e64-5f0d0511b7b7", "slug": "there-is-a-certain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/there-is-a-certain", "text": "There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_I:_Thoughts_on_Mind_and_Style_(1-59)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" } ] }