Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · רישיון: Public domain · מקור

• We must render these duties; it is unjust to refuse them, and unjust to ask others. And so it is false and tyrannical to say, "He is not strong, therefore I will not esteem him; he is not able, therefore I will not fear him." SECTION V · ¶959
• Have you never seen people who, in order to complain of the little fuss you make about them, parade before you the example of great men who esteem them? In answer I reply to them, "Show me the merit whereby you have charmed these persons, and I also will esteem you." SECTION V · ¶961
• _The reason of effects._--Lust and force are the source of all our actions; lust causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones. SECTION V · ¶963
• _The reason of effects._--We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people. SECTION V · ¶967
• I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head (for it is only experience which teaches us that the head is more necessary than feet). But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute. SECTION VI · ¶974
• The arithmetical machine produces effects which approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing which would enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals. SECTION VI · ¶976
• The account of the pike and frog of Liancourt.[128] They do it always, and never otherwise, nor any other thing showing mind. SECTION VI · ¶978
• The beak of the parrot, which it wipes, although it is clean. SECTION VI · ¶982
• Instinct and reason, marks of two natures. SECTION VI · ¶984
• Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools. SECTION VI · ¶986
• Thought constitutes the greatness of man. SECTION VI · ¶988
• All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality. SECTION VI · ¶991
• _A thinking reed._--It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. SECTION VI · ¶993
• _Immateriality of the soul._--Philosophers[129] who have mastered their passions. What matter could do that? SECTION VI · ¶995
• _The Stoics._--They conclude that what has been done once can be done always, and that since the desire of glory imparts some power to those whom it possesses, others can do likewise. There are feverish movements which health cannot imitate. SECTION VI · ¶997
• Epictetus[130] concludes that since there are consistent Christians, every man can easily be so. SECTION VI · ¶998
• Those great spiritual efforts, which the soul sometimes assays, are things on which it does not lay hold.[131] It only leaps to them, not as upon a throne, for ever, but merely for an instant. SECTION VI · ¶1000
• The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life. SECTION VI · ¶1002
• Man's nature is not always to advance; it has its advances and retreats. SECTION VI · ¶1006
• Fever has its cold and hot fits; and the cold proves as well as the hot the greatness of the fire of fever. SECTION VI · ¶1007
• The discoveries of men from age to age turn out the same. The kindness and the malice of the world in general are the same. _Plerumque gratæ principibus vices._[133] SECTION VI · ¶1008
• Princes and kings sometimes play. They are not always on their thrones. They weary there. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm. SECTION VI · ¶1011
• Nature acts by progress, _itus et reditus_. It goes and returns, then advances further, then twice as much backwards, then more forward than ever, etc. SECTION VI · ¶1012
• The tide of the sea behaves in the same manner; and so apparently does the sun in its course. SECTION VI · ¶1013
• The nourishment of the body is little by little. Fullness of nourishment and smallness of substance. SECTION VI · ¶1015
• Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.[134] SECTION VI · ¶1019
• We do not sustain ourselves in virtue by our own strength, but by the balancing of two opposed vices, just as we remain upright amidst two contrary gales. Remove one of the vices, and we fall into the other. SECTION VI · ¶1021
• What the Stoics propose is so difficult and foolish! SECTION VI · ¶1023
• The Stoics lay down that all those who are not at the high degree of wisdom are equally foolish and vicious, as those who are two inches under water. SECTION VI · ¶1024
• _The sovereign good. Dispute about the sovereign good._--_Ut sis contentus temetipso et ex te nascentibus bonis._[135] There is a contradiction, for in the end they advise suicide. Oh! What a happy life, from which we are to free ourselves as from the plague! SECTION VI · ¶1026
• _Ex senatus-consultis et plebiscitis_ ... SECTION VI · ¶1028
• _Ex senatus-consultis et plebiscitis scelera exercentur._ Sen. 588.[136] SECTION VI · ¶1031
• _Nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum._ Divin.[137] SECTION VI · ¶1032
• _Quibusdam destinatis sententiis consecrati quæ non probant coguntur defendere._ Cic.[138] SECTION VI · ¶1033
• _Ut omnium rerum sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus._ Senec.[139] SECTION VI · ¶1034
• _Id maxime quemque decet, quod est cujusque suum maxime._[140] SECTION VI · ¶1035
• _Hos natura modos primum dedit._[141] Georg. SECTION VI · ¶1036
• _Paucis opus est litteris ad bonam mentem._[142] SECTION VI · ¶1037
• _Si quando turpe non sit, tamen non est non turpe quum id a multitudine laudetur._ SECTION VI · ¶1038
• _Mihi sic usus est, tibi ut opus est facto, fac._[143] Ter. SECTION VI · ¶1039

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