Blaise Pascal

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

I cannot imagine a man without thought; he would be a stone or an animal.

...we cannot define these things without obscuring them, while we speak of them with all assurance. ...our doubts cannot take away all the clearness, nor our own natural lights chase away all the darkness.

One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person.

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.

Mais c'est une ignorance savante qui se connaît.

We find fault with perfection itself.

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.'

When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops draws attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.

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.

Thought constitutes the greatness of man.