Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. Pascal’s early work, in the fields of hydrodynamics and hydrostatics, centered on the principles of hydraulic fluids. His inventions include the hydraulic press and the syringe. Pascal was an important mathematician. He wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16, and later his correspondence on probability theory strongly influenced the development of modern economics and social science. Pascal’s most influential theological work, referred to posthumously as the Pensees (“Thoughts”), is a collection of fragments on theology and philosophy.
Quotes by Blaise Pascal…
Man’s sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange disorder.
We owe a great debt to those who point out our faults for they humiliate us… They prepare for us the exercise of correction and freedom from fault.
I possess the truth, and we shall see who will take it away.
Take away their diversion, and you will see them dried up with weariness. They feel then their nothingness without knowing it… If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion.
Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate… We must keep silent as much as possible, and talk with ourselves only of God, whom we know to be true, and thus we convince ourselves of the truth.
Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit and his whole duty to think as he ought.
Human things must be known to be loved, but Divine things must be loved to be known.
In proportion as our own mind is enlarged, we discover a greater number of men of originality. Common-place people see no difference between one man and another.
This resting in ignorance is a monstrous thing, and they who pass their life in it must be made to feel its extravagance and stupidity, by having it shown to them, so that they may be confounded by the sight of their folly.
There is no consolation except in truth alone.
