Pensées
306 quotes
Biography
The Pensées (Thoughts) is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work.
"...it is rare that mathematicians are intuitive, and that men of intuition are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically, and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond all men, and only a few can feel it."
"Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical."
"There are then two kinds of intellect: the one able to penetrate acutely and deeply into the conclusions of given premises, and this is the precise intellect; the other able to comprehend a great number of premises without confusing them, and this is the mathematical intellect. The one has force and exactness, the other comprehension. Now the one quality can exist without the other; the intellect can be strong and narrow, and can also be comprehensive and weak."
"Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, for they would understand at first sight, and are not used to seek for principles. And others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, do not at all understand matters of feeling, seeking principles, and being unable to see at a glance."
"La vraie éloquence se moque de l'éloquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale."
"...it is to judgment that perception belongs, as science belongs to intellect. Intuition is the part of judgment, mathematics of intellect."
"Se moquer de la philosophie, c'est vraiment philosopher"
"The understanding and the feelings are moulded by intercourse; the understanding and feelings are corrupted by intercourse. Thus good or bad society improves or corrupts them. It is, then, all-important to know how to choose in order to improve and not to corrupt them; and we cannot make this choice, if they be not already improved and not corrupted. Thus a circle is formed, and those are fortunate who escape it."
"The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men."
"When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides."
"...no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true."
"People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others."
"Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it."
"It [eloquence] consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to establish between the head and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts and the expressions which we employ. ...We must put ourselves in the place of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our own heart... We ought to restrict ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and natural, and not to magnify that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to the subject, and there must be in it nothing of excess or defect."
"Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go."
"La dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la première."
"Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place."
"Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference..."
"Quand on voit le style naturel, on est tout étonné et ravi, car on s'attendait de voir un auteur, et on trouve un homme. Au lieu que ceux qui ont le goût bon, et qui, en voyant un livre, croient trouver un homme, sont tout surpris de trouver un auteur: plus poetice quam humaine locutus est. Ceux-là honorent bien la nature, qui lui apprennent qu'elle peut parler de tout, et même de théologie."
"Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything, even on theology."
"We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting."
"Beauty of omission, of judgment."
"There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature... and the thing which pleases us."
"Poetical beauty. ...We know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists of proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists of healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry."
"...whoever imagines a woman after this model, which consists in saying little things in big words, will see a pretty girl adorned with mirrors and chains..."