Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · الترخيص: Public domain · المصدر

• "All things change and succeed each other." You are mistaken; there is ... SECTION III · ¶664
• Objection of atheists: "But we have no light." SECTION III · ¶666
• I envy those whom I see living in the faith with such carelessness, and who make such a bad use of a gift of which it seems to me I would make such a different use. SECTION III · ¶669
• It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that He should not exist; that the soul should be joined to the body, and that we should have no soul; that the world should be created, and that it should not be created, etc.; that original sin should be, and that it should not be. SECTION III · ¶671
• Do you believe it to be impossible that God is infinite, without parts?--Yes. I wish therefore to show you an infinite and indivisible thing. It is a point moving everywhere with an infinite velocity; for it is one in all places, and is all totality in every place. SECTION III · ¶673
• Let this effect of nature, which previously seemed to you impossible, make you know that there may be others of which you are still ignorant. Do not draw this conclusion from your experiment, that there remains nothing for you to know; but rather that there remains an infinity for you to know. SECTION III · ¶674
• Infinite movement, the point which fills everything, the moment of rest; infinite without quantity, indivisible and infinite. SECTION III · ¶676
• _Infinite_--_nothing._--Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature, necessity, and can believe nothing else. SECTION III · ¶678
• The justice of God must be vast like His compassion. Now justice to the outcast is less vast, and ought less to offend our feelings than mercy towards the elect. SECTION III · ¶680
• But by faith we know His existence; in glory we shall know His nature. Now, I have already shown that we may well know the existence of a thing, without knowing its nature. SECTION III · ¶683
• Let us now speak according to natural lights. SECTION III · ¶684
• If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him. SECTION III · ¶685
• Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all." SECTION III · ¶687
• "I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?"--Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc. "Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?" SECTION III · ¶690
• But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks. SECTION III · ¶692
• "Ah! This discourse transports me, charms me," etc. SECTION III · ¶694
• Saint Augustine has seen that we work for an uncertainty, on sea, in battle, etc. But he has not seen the doctrine of chance which proves that we should do so. Montaigne has seen that we are shocked at a fool, and that habit is all-powerful; but he has not seen the reason of this effect. SECTION III · ¶698
• _Rem viderunt, causam non viderunt._ SECTION III · ¶701
• _Chances._--We must live differently in the world, according to these different assumptions: (1) that we could always remain in it; (2) that it is certain that we shall not remain here long, and uncertain if we shall remain here one hour. This last assumption is our condition. SECTION III · ¶705
• What do you then promise me, in addition to certain troubles, but ten years of self-love (for ten years is the chance), to try hard to please without success? SECTION III · ¶707
• _Objection._--Those who hope for salvation are so far happy; but they have as a counterpoise the fear of hell. SECTION III · ¶709
• _Reply._--Who has most reason to fear hell: he who is in ignorance whether there is a hell, and who is certain of damnation if there is; or he who certainly believes there is a hell, and hopes to be saved if there is? SECTION III · ¶710
• _Order._--I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true. SECTION III · ¶714
• _Preface to the second part._--To speak of those who have treated of this matter. SECTION IV · ¶717
• "Why! Do you not say yourself that the heavens and birds prove God?" No. "And does your religion not say so?" No. For although it is true in a sense for some souls to whom God gives this light, yet it is false with respect to the majority of men. SECTION IV · ¶724
• _Order._--After the letter _That we ought to seek God_, to write the letter _On removing obstacles_; which is the discourse on "the machine,"[96] on preparing the machine, on seeking by reason. SECTION IV · ¶728
• It is superstition to put one's hope in formalities; but it is pride to be unwilling to submit to them. SECTION IV · ¶734
• Two extremes: to exclude reason, to admit reason only. SECTION IV · ¶743
• It is not a rare thing to have to reprove the world for too much docility. It is a natural vice like credulity, and as pernicious. Superstition. SECTION IV · ¶745
• Piety is different from superstition. SECTION IV · ¶747
• To carry piety as far as superstition is to destroy it. SECTION IV · ¶748
• The heretics reproach us for this superstitious submission. This is to do what they reproach us for ... SECTION IV · ¶749
• Infidelity, not to believe in the Eucharist, because it is not seen. SECTION IV · ¶750
• Superstition to believe propositions. Faith, etc. SECTION IV · ¶751
• I say there are few true Christians, even as regards faith. There are many who believe but from superstition. There are many who do not believe solely from wickedness. Few are between the two. SECTION IV · ¶753
• In this I do not include those who are of truly pious character, nor all those who believe from a feeling in their heart. SECTION IV · ¶754
• _Unusquisque sibi Deum fingit._[101] SECTION IV · ¶758
• Ordinary people have the power of not thinking of that about which they do not wish to think. "Do not meditate on the passages about the Messiah," said the Jew to his son. Thus our people often act. Thus are false religions preserved, and even the true one, in regard to many persons. SECTION IV · ¶761
• But there are some who have not the power of thus preventing thought, and who think so much the more as they are forbidden. These undo false religions, and even the true one, if they do not find solid arguments. SECTION IV · ¶762
• They hide themselves in the press, and call numbers to their rescue. Tumult. SECTION IV · ¶764

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