Quotes by Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) — Philosoph · Katholisch · Frankreich

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) war ein französischer Mathematiker, Physiker und Philosoph, der vor allem in Paris und Rouen wirkte. Nach einer tiefen religiösen Erfahrung schloss er sich der jansenistischen Reformbewegung von Port-Royal an und verfasste mit den „Pensées“ sowie den kirchenpolitisch umstrittenen „Lettres provinciales“ einflussreiche apologetische Schriften. Für Bibelleser thematisieren seine Überlegungen die Begrenztheit rein rationaler Gotteserkenntnis und stellen die existenzielle Bedürftigkeit des Menschen nach göttlicher Gnade heraus.

Era: Reformation & Baroque

Recurring topics: Wisdom & Understanding, Faith & Trust, God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit, Meaning & Identity, Doubt & Hard Questions, Humility & Pride, Love, Freedom & Truth

Quotes by Blaise Pascal

It is unimaginable what God can make of the fragments of our life, when we surrender them to him completely.

Blaise Pascal

A drop of love is worth more than an ocean of reason.

Blaise Pascal

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

Blaise Pascal

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous, who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.

Blaise Pascal

All of human unhappiness comes from not being able to stay quietly in a room.

Blaise Pascal

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

Blaise Pascal

Happiness is not within us, and it is not outside of us either. Happiness is only in God, and once we have found him, it is everywhere.

Blaise Pascal

There is an abyss in every human being; it can only be filled with God.

Blaise Pascal

In the heart of every person there is a vacuum created by God, which can be filled by nothing created but only by God the Creator, as he reveals himself in Christ.

Blaise Pascal

The God of the infinitely great is the God of the infinitely small.

Blaise Pascal

Human things must be known to be loved; but Divine things must be loved to be known.

Blaise Pascal

If man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God?

Blaise Pascal

The ultimate purpose of reason is to bring us to the place where we can see that there is a limit to reason.

Blaise Pascal

I know only two kinds of reasonable people: those who love God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek God with all their heart because they do not know Him.

Blaise Pascal

The heart feels God, not reason; that is faith.

Blaise Pascal

Man is neither angel nor beast; whoever wants to act the angel acts the beast.

Blaise Pascal

We know the truth not only through reason, but also through the heart.

Blaise Pascal

I have made this letter longer because I lacked the time to make it shorter.

Blaise Pascal

Man is not worthy of God; but he is not unworthy of being made worthy of Him.

Blaise Pascal

Experience shows us what a tremendous difference there is between piety and goodness.

Blaise Pascal

Jesus was in a garden, not one of pleasures like the first Adam, in which he destroyed himself and the whole human race, but one of anguish, in which he saved the whole human race.

Blaise Pascal

The serene beauty of a holy life is, after the power of God, the mightiest influence in the world.

Blaise Pascal

Everything that is not God cannot fulfill my hope.

Blaise Pascal

When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.

Blaise Pascal

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

Blaise Pascal

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Blaise Pascal

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob—not of the philosophers and scholars. God of Jesus Christ. He is found and kept only in the ways taught in the Gospel.

Blaise Pascal

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

Blaise Pascal

I ask You neither for health nor for sickness, for life nor for death; but that You may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for Your glory… You alone know what is expedient for me; You are the sovereign master, do with me according to Your will. Give to me, or take away from me, only conform my will to Yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow You, and bad to offend You. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of Your providence, which I adore, but so not seek to fathom.

Blaise Pascal

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

Blaise Pascal

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

Blaise Pascal

Justice without power is powerless; power without justice is tyrannical.

Blaise Pascal

We run heedlessly into the abyss, after having placed something in front of us to prevent us from seeing it.

Blaise Pascal

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.

Blaise Pascal

Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars.

Blaise Pascal

We are not content with the life we have in our own being; we want to live an imaginary life in the minds of others, and so we exert ourselves to appear.

Blaise Pascal

Faith gives enough light for those who want to believe, and enough darkness to blind those who do not.

Blaise Pascal

However dark our lot may appear, we must hope that God will make it a source of joy for us, if we leave the guidance to him.

Blaise Pascal

All these contradictions, which seemed to keep me furthest from the knowledge of religion, have led me most quickly to the true one.

Blaise Pascal

There is enough light for those who desire to see.

Blaise Pascal

135 quotes in total — browse the collection.

Sources: museeprotestant.org, spektrum.de, theimaginativeconservative.org, cam.ac.uk

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