Top 500 Blaise Pascal Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.”

— Blaise Pascal

402. “Things have different qualities, and the soul different inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep and laugh at the same thing.”

— Blaise Pascal

403. “The weakness of human reason appears more evidently in those who know it not than in those who know it.”

— Blaise Pascal

404. “Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.”

— Blaise Pascal

405. “Nature confuses the skeptics and reason confutes the dogmatists.”

— Blaise Pascal

406. “All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.”

— Blaise Pascal

407. “Thinking too little about things or thinking too much both make us obstinate and fanatical.”

— Blaise Pascal

408. “We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.”

— Blaise Pascal

409. “The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.”

— Blaise Pascal

410. “Too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to overpay our debts.”

— Blaise Pascal

411. “Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted.”

— Blaise Pascal

412. “Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.”

— Blaise Pascal

413. “We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example of good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare.”

— Blaise Pascal

414. “It is superstitious to put one’s hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.”

— Blaise Pascal

415. “The manner in which Epictetus, Montaigne, and Salomon de Tultie wrote, is the most usual, the most suggestive, the most remembered, and the oftener quoted; because it is entirely composed of thoughts born from the common talk of life.”

— Blaise Pascal

416. “Not to be mad is another form of madness.”

— Blaise Pascal

417. “The secrets of nature are concealed; her agency is perpetual, but we do not always discover its effects; time reveals them from age to age; and although she is always the same in herself, she is not always equally well known.”

— Blaise Pascal

418. “It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.”

— Blaise Pascal

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

— Blaise Pascal

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420. “All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one’s self.”

— Blaise Pascal

421. “The war existing between the senses and reason.”

— Blaise Pascal

422. “E? loquence quipersuade par douceur, non par empire, en tyran, non en roi. Eloquence should persuade gently, not by force or like a tyrant or king.”

— Blaise Pascal

423. “Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.”

— Blaise Pascal

424. “Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.”

— Blaise Pascal

425. “There is some pleasure in being on board a ship battered by storms when one is certain of not perishing. The persecutions buffeting the Church are like this.”

— Blaise Pascal

426. “To call a king “Prince” is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.”

— Blaise Pascal

427. “Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.”

— Blaise Pascal

428. “It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf.”

— Blaise Pascal

429. “Men blaspheme what they do not know.”

— Blaise Pascal

430. “Without the knowledge of our wretchedness, the knowledge of God creates pride. With it, the knowledge of God creates despair. The knowledge of Christ offers a third way, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.”

— Blaise Pascal

431. “The Christian religion teaches me two points-that there is a God whom men can know, and that their nature is so corrupt that they are unworthy of Him.”

— Blaise Pascal

432. “There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.”

— Blaise Pascal

433. “God is enough for them.”

— Blaise Pascal

434. “Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better.”

— Blaise Pascal

435. “The heart has its order, the mind has its own, which uses principles and demonstrations. The heart has a different one. We do not prove that we ought to be loved by setting out in order the causes of love; that would be absurd.”

— Blaise Pascal

436. “Amusement that is excessive and followed only for its own sake, allures and deceives us.”

— Blaise Pascal

437. “Continuous eloquence wearies.”

— Blaise Pascal

438. “To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.”

— Blaise Pascal

439. “If we regulate our conduct according to our own convictions, we may safely disregard the praise or censure of others.”

— Blaise Pascal

440. “A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.”

— Blaise Pascal

441. “There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs.”

— Blaise Pascal

442. “How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don’t admire at all.”

— Blaise Pascal

443. “Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably.”

— Blaise Pascal

444. “Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.”

— Blaise Pascal

445. “Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.”

— Blaise Pascal

446. “Certain authors, speaking of their works, say: “My book,” “My commentary,” “My history,” etc. They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own and always have “My house” on their tongue.”

— Blaise Pascal

447. “If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would itself be venerable enough.”

— Blaise Pascal

448. “Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.”

— Blaise Pascal

449. “Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.”

— Blaise Pascal

450. “Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.”

— Blaise Pascal