Blaise Pascal

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us read more

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 What does this desire and this inability of ours proclaim to us but that there was once in man a genuine happiness, of which nothing now survives but the mark and the empty outline; and this he vainly tries to fill from everything that lies around him, seeking from things that are not there the help that he does not get from those that are present? Yet they are quite incapable of filling the gap, because this infinite gulf can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object -- that is, God, Himself. He alone is man's veritable good, and since man has deserted Him it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature that has not been capable of taking His place for man: stars, sky, earth, elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, plague, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since he has lost the true good, everything can equally appear to him as such -- even his own destruction, though that is so contrary at once to God, to reason, and to nature.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain-- we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the read more

We conceal it from ourselves in vain-- we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.

It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.

All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room
alone.

All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room
alone.

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.