A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.
Blaise Pascal

All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.
Blaise Pascal

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.
Blaise Pascal

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
Blaise Pascal

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.
Blaise Pascal

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
Blaise Pascal

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.
Blaise Pascal

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
Blaise Pascal

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
Blaise Pascal

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.
Blaise Pascal


Concupiscence and force are the source of all our actions; concupiscence causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones.
Blaise Pascal

Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
Blaise Pascal

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
Blaise Pascal

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?
Blaise Pascal

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.
Blaise Pascal

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

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.
Blaise Pascal

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.
Blaise Pascal

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise Pascal

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.
Blaise Pascal