Quotes from Pensées

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.
(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.)”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Little things comfort us because little things distress us.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Le silence eternel des ces espaces infinis m'effraie - The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light is throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connaît point.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. but even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“And if one loves me for my judgement, memory, he does not love me, for I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where, then, is this Ego, if it be neither in the body nor in the soul? And how love the body or the soul, except for these qualities which do not constitute me, since they are perishable? For it is impossible and would be unjust to love the soul of a person in the abstract and whatever qualities might be therein. We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.
Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference...”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“La dernière chose qu'on trouve en faisant un ouvrage est de savoir celle qu'il faut mettre la première. (The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.)”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which precedes and will succeed it—memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis (remembrance of a guest who tarried but a day)—the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed to see myself here rather than there: there is no reason for me to be here rather than there, now rather than then. Who put me here? By whose command and act were this place and time allotted to me?”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“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, quote from Pensées

“Atheists. What grounds have they for saying that no one can rise from the dead? Which is harder, to be born or to rise again? That what has never been should be, or that what has been should be once more? Is it harder to come into existence than to come back? Habit makes us find the one easy, while lack of habit makes us find the other impossible.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

“Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.”
― Blaise Pascal, quote from Pensées

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“But won’t political involvement distract us from the main task of preaching the Gospel? At this point someone may object that while political involvement may have some benefits and may do some good, it can so easily distract us, turn unbelievers away from the church, and cause us to neglect the main task of pointing people toward personal trust in Christ. John MacArthur writes, “When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization.”83 Yet the proper question is not, “Does political influence take resources away from evangelism?” but, “Is political influence something God has called us to do?” If God has called some of us to some political influence, then those resources would not be blessed if we diverted them to evangelism—or to the choir, or to teaching Sunday School to children, or to any other use. In this matter, as in everything else the church does, it would be healthy for Christians to realize that God may call individual Christians to different emphases in their lives. This is because God has placed in the church “varieties of gifts” (1 Cor. 12:4) and the church is an entity that has “many members” but is still “one body” (v. 12). Therefore God might call someone to devote almost all of his or her time to the choir, someone else to youth work, someone else to evangelism, someone else to preparing refreshments to welcome visitors, and someone else to work with lighting and sound systems. “But if Jim places all his attention on the sound system, won’t that distract the church from the main task of preaching the Gospel?” No, not at all. That is not what God has called Jim to emphasize (though he will certainly share the Gospel with others as he has opportunity). Jim’s exclusive focus on the church’s sound system means he is just being a faithful steward in the responsibility God has given him. In the same way, I think it is entirely possible that God called Billy Graham to emphasize evangelism and say nothing about politics and also called James Dobson to emphasize a radio ministry to families and to influencing the political world for good. Aren’t there enough Christians in the world for us to focus on more than one task? And does God not call us to thousands of different emphases, all in obedience to him? But the whole ministry of the church will include both emphases. And the teaching ministry from the pulpit should do nothing less than proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). It should teach, over the course of time, on all areas of life and all areas of Bible knowledge. That certainly must include, to some extent, what the Bible says about the purposes of civil government and how that teaching should apply to our situations today. This means that in a healthy church we will find that some people emphasize influencing the government and politics, others emphasize influencing the business world, others emphasize influencing the educational system, others entertainment and the media, others marriage and the family, and so forth. When that happens, it seems to me that we should encourage, not discourage, one another. We should adopt the attitude toward each other that Paul encouraged in the church at Rome: Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother (Rom. 14:10–13). For several different reasons, then, I think the view that says the church should just “do evangelism, not politics” is incorrect.”
― Wayne A. Grudem, quote from Politics - According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture

“There is one final bad-news punch line to my life. This bad news is complicated, difficult to explain. In a nutshell, it’s that I am pretty sure that my dad is planning to kill me. The good news is that he’d be doing this out of his love for me. The bad news is that whatever the wonderfulness of his motives, I’ll be dead.”
― Terry Trueman, quote from Stuck in Neutral

“Whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding
as it should.”
― Max Ehrmann, quote from Desiderata: Words For Life

“Zarife de kendine göre Yedigey'in iyiliğini istemiş ve bu konuda vicdanının sesine uymuştu. Bunun için Zarife'yi suçlamıyor, ona kızamıyordu. Zaten insan sevdiğine kızamazdı ki! Daha çok kendisini suçluyor, kendisini kusurlu buluyordu. Sevdiği kadın acı çekeceğine kendisi acı çeksindi. Bırakıp gitse bile onu hep sevgiyle anardı.”
― Chingiz Aitmatov, quote from The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years

“You used to say it was just me but now you're saying you did it with other girls before me. I thought I was special. You said you fell in love with me.' Thinking about this, I felt like a power source with too many of its outlets in use, like my whole brain was having a blackout.”
― Margaux Fragoso, quote from Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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