Blaise Pascal

Every one can call himself a prophet. But I see the Christian religion wherein prophecies are fulfilled; and that is what every one cannot do.

Man's true nature, his true good, true virtue, and true religion, are things that cannot be known separately.

Miracles and truth are necessary, because it is necessary to convince the entire man, in body and soul.

Le silence est la plus grande persécution; jamais les saints ne se sont tus.

More literally, a translation would be:

To know if the prophets confined their view in the Old Testament, or saw therein other things.

When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should awaken without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall into despair.

It is much more glorious for the Messiah that they should be the observers and even the instruments of his glory—other than that God had chosen them.

Prophecies. Proofs of Divinity.—Is. xli.: "Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: we will incline our heart unto your words. Teach us the things that have been at the beginning, and declare us things for to come. "By this we shall know that ye are gods. Yea, do good and do evil, if you can. Let us then behold it and reason together. Behold ye are of nothing, and only an abomination, &c. Who," (among contemporary writers), "hath declared from the beginning and origin? that we may say, You are righteous. There is none that teacheth us, yea, there is none that declareth the future."

A God humiliated, even to the death on the cross; a Messiah triumphing over death by his own death. Two natures in Jesus Christ, two advents, two states of man's nature.

I blame equally those who decide to praise man, those who blame him, and those who amuse themselves; and I can approve only of those who search in anguish.

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.