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Quote by Blaise Pascal

“Those great efforts of intellect, upon which the mind sometimes touches, are such that it cannot maintain itself there. It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, forever, but merely for an instant.”

Quote by Blaise Pascal

Author

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and theologian. He was born on June 19, 1623, and died on August 19, 1662. Pascal's contributions to mathematics were particularly significant, with groundbreaking work in probability theory, analytical geometry, and early calculus. more

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“It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.”

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Book:Thoughts

Source: Thoughts

“Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.”

World Firsts Body Born Existence Knowledge Position Sight Infinite Intellect Infinity Compass Expanse

Book:Thoughts

Source: Thoughts

“We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any pointand to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us.”

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Book:Pensees

Source: Pensees

“The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state.”

People Men Wells States Natural Knowledge Ignorance Judging Mass

Author:Blaise Pascal

“Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.”

Knows Men Mind Firsts Two Running Natural Knowledge Ignorance Birth Pure Conscious Extremes Self Knowledge Back Again Great Minds Two Extremes

Author:Blaise Pascal

“Since [man] is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing from which he was made, and the infinite in which he is swallowed up.”

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Book:Pascal's Pensees

Source: Pascal's Pensees

“What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?”

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Book:Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works

Source: Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works

“If we dreamed the same thing every night, it would affect us much as the objects we see every day. And if a common workman were sure to dream every night for twelve hours that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours on end that he was a common workman.”

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Author:Blaise Pascal

“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 man.”

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Book:Pascal's Pensees

Source: Pascal's Pensees

“We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.”

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Author:Blaise Pascal