Pensées

“Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.”

These features, for Pascal, are the natural condition of mankind, rooted in the Fall (See: Index of Terms). At the beginning, mankind enjoyed perfect happiness and innocence, but this was spoiled by original sin. As a result, we live in a state of perpetual uncertainty and imperfection, reflecting The Greatness and Misery of Mankind. Pascal will argue that Christianity provides the explanation and solution for this problem.

“Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace.”

Expanding on the previous quote, Pascal argues that the Fall has so corrupted human nature—including obscuring our ability to see and follow the truth—that only God’s grace can provide illumination and rescue us from our predicament. This position represents a slight shift away from both medieval scholastic teaching and contemporary rationalism regarding the power of reason, and may reflect some influence from Jansenism (See: Background).

“If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it.”

One of Pascal’s major ideas is that human beings are at heart unhappy and try to forget their unhappiness by pursuing “diversions.” These include any kind of occupation that is pleasurable, amusing, or provides distraction. In this way, people are able to avoid thinking about the difficult and painful questions of their moral condition and final destiny as human beings, evading confrontation with The Greatness and Misery of Mankind.

“Who indeed would think himself unhappy not to be king except one who had been dispossessed?”

This passage features Pascal’s allegorical expression of mankind’s condition after the Fall: We started out happy and morally perfect in Paradise, as if as privileged as a king, but have since fallen into a state of moral degradation through sin. The result is unhappiness like that of a king who has had his rightful possessions taken away. According to Pascal, human beings have a natural intuition that they are capable of, and entitled to, a greater happiness than they feel at present in this life.

“I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

According to Pascal, the source of unhappiness is that we are unable to be content with what we have but are constantly going out in search of something more. This is because of our deep-seated intuition that we desire something more than the earthly and material—namely the happiness, security, and union with God that mankind enjoyed before the Fall. For Pascal, all humans innately long for The Value of Spiritual and Intellectual Conviction.

“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.”

For Pascal, to recognize that reason cannot explain everything is itself a reasonable conclusion to make, reflecting The Importance and Limitations of Reason. We know that any number of things in nature and science are not understood at present; it stands to reason that “supernatural” things (pertaining to faith and religion) also fall under this category. Since we cannot know everything by our limited human capacity, the only reasonable course of action is to adopt a stance of humility in the face of the mystery of reality.

“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”

Pascal likens a human being to a reed—a slender, frail thing in nature. However, unlike natural objects and animals, mankind has the power of rational thought, and this separates him from the rest of nature. The power of thought constitutes man’s capacity for greatness in that it enables him to understand, contemplate, and rise above his circumstances.

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.”

In one of the most famous quotes from the book, Pascal expresses mankind’s existential feeling of smallness, insignificance, and fear in the face of a vast and seemingly indifferent visible universe (outer space, in modern terms). Pascal argues that human beings can find happiness by realizing their limitations in the entire scheme of the universe, in which they have a natural place that is divinely ordained. Indeed, the seeming indifference of the cosmos only masks a loving God who is partly hidden and partly revealed.

“Jesus is a God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.”

As a religious figure, Jesus appeals perfectly to The Greatness and Misery of Mankind. He is like us in being human, and thus we can easily approach him as a fellow human being. Since he is also divine and desires to save us, we can worship him with a sense of reassurance. Thus, for Pascal, Jesus Christ is the key that solves man’s existential dilemma.

“If we claim that man is too slight to deserve communion with God, we must indeed be great to be able to judge.”

Pascal is responding to a popular objection to Christianity that stresses man’s insignificance and unworthiness. Typical of his use of irony, Pascal turns this objection around, positing that the apparent humility of the objection masks pride and presumption. Pascal implies that God is perfectly able to redeem an insignificant creature like man if he so chooses.

“True Jews and true Christians worship a Messiah who makes them love God.”

This passage reflects a crucial point in Pascal’s theology: The Value of Spiritual and Intellectual Conviction. He argues here that, in a sense, both Jews and Christians share the same core faith, insofar as the authentic forms of Judaism and of Christianity stress the love of God above all else. The quote shows Pascal’s unique attitude toward Judaism in an era when many Christian thinkers stressed the irreconcilable differences between the two religions.

“To render passion harmless let us behave as though we had only a week to live.”

Pascal emphasizes living life with a sense of existential urgency, always keeping our focus on our final end and the moral measures we must take to achieve it. His concern here is taming the evil passions of the soul that lead to sin. Pascal implies that if we keep our final destiny always in mind, we will gain mastery over our passions and will no longer be attracted to sin.

“I should be much more afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true.”

This quote is a reflection and variation on the famous Pascal’s Wager, in which Pascal posited that it is in our interest to make a bet that God and heaven exist. Pascal states this idea here in different terms but expresses the same meaning. The Wager is perhaps the most famous religious concept articulated in the Pensées and has been widely discussed and debated.

“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways.”

Along with the Wager, this is one of the best known and oft-quoted ideas from the Pensées. It encapsulates Pascal’s argument against the rationalism of his time, that the heart—which he identifies as the core of a person’s beliefs and convictions—is the true determining part of the human being. He goes on to elaborate that love is “natural” and not the result of rational reflection. Elsewhere Pascal draws the further implication that faith in its essence resides in the heart and not in the mind, and that it is better to access God through the heart than through reason.

“He is neither angel nor beast, but man.”

This passage is an encapsulation of Pascal’s view of mankind as occupying an intermediate state between good and evil, reflecting The Greatness and Misery of Mankind. Pascal stresses elsewhere that both extremes must be kept in balance so as to maintain a truthful view of mankind.

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”

This passage is a good example of Pascal’s ironic style of aphorism. Pascal is saying that, according to Christian ethics, those who acknowledge their own sinfulness are practicing the virtue of humility and thereby become righteous, whereas those who are blind to their own sinfulness are on that account lacking in humility and virtue. The quote has a Biblical parallel in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Lk 18: 9-14.

“The adding-machine produces effects closer to thought than anything done by the animals, but it does nothing to justify the assertion that it has a will like the animals.”

Pascal alludes to his invention of the Pascaline, a pioneering adding machine. Declared during the early scientific revolution and having continuing relevance in modern times, Pascal’s quote asserts that while machines can mimic thought and actions, they lack the core essence of what makes human beings human. This concern of Pascal’s connects with many of the book’s reflections on God and human nature.

“We never go after things in themselves, but the pursuit of things.”

One of Pascal’s core convictions is that human beings occupy themselves in constant activity in an attempt to forget about their deep unhappiness and need for God’s grace. Pascal’s conclusion is that no earthly experiences or amusements can make us truly and lastingly happy, only the knowledge and love of God.

“One must belong to the religion they despise in order not to despise them.”

Another ironic aphorism, this passage expresses the irony that Christianity inculcates a sense of pity for fellow human beings, including those who are opposed to Christianity. Pascal believes that Christians must pity unbelievers and help guide them to the truth, rather than scorn them and thus risk alienating them further. His planned book is partly an attempt to guide nonbelievers to Christianity.

“I only believe histories whose witnesses are ready to be put to death.”

A portion of the book is occupied with defending the truth of Christianity on the grounds of its early prophecies and history. Pascal is alluding here to the fact that the first generation of Christians went to their deaths in witness to their faith in Christ, which argues for the truth and historicity of Christianity. Pascal says this in the context of comparing the historical witness of Moses with that of “China,” reflecting his view that the religions of other cultures are less well-supported than Judaism and Christianity.

“‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,’ not of philosophers and scholars.”

This passage is another of the most famous quotes from the Pensées, from the Memorial. Apparently inspired by what he experienced in his mystical “Night of Fire,” Pascal declares his allegiance to God as known through the revelation of the Scriptures, rather than by the rational arguments and proofs for God’s existence as put forth by intellectuals. This again reflects Pascal’s belief in the primacy of faith over the pure use of reason, invoking his ideas about The Importance and Limitations of Reason. The formula “God of Abraham, God of Isaac,” etc., is spoken by God himself as a way to refer to himself in the Old Testament.

“You would not seek me if you did not possess me.”

This quote is typical of Pascal’s style in the most private, meditative parts of the book, in which he frequently presents God or Christ speaking. Here divinity is presented as speaking in a Pascalian ironic aphorism. If a human being is seeking God, it is a sign that they, in a sense, already have God within them. This bears the comforting implication that the spiritual battle is half-won and that the believer should therefore not be “troubled.”

“Sleep, you may say, is the image of death; for my part I say that it is rather the image of life.”

Pascal, as an otherworldly Christian, sees earthly life as a mere shadow compared to the glorious nature of eternal life that the Christian will enjoy after death. Compared to such heavenly existence, earthly life is like a dream or sleep in which we are deprived of the full nature of reality. Thus, for Pascal, death is not the end but the portal to a new and better life.