Blaise Pascal

"The will is never satisfied, though it possesses much."

"True nobility is exempt from fear."

"Few friendships would survive if each friend knew what the other says of him behind his back."

"Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary."

"Courage is the power to let go of what we cannot change."

"We must know ourselves. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life."

"The art of persuasion lies in the appearance of truth."

"We know what we are, but we know not what we may be."

"The eternal silence of infinite space terrifies and fascinates me."

"Faith is not a matter of the intellect but of the heart."

"To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize."

"The finite mind cannot understand infinity."

"Grace is the only gift that a broken heart can give."

"Every man is guided by reason as much as he is guided by passion."

"Truth is so obscured nowadays, and lies so well established, that unless we love the truth we shall never find it."

"Let man contemplate nature in her entirety and then turn away from the infinitely small to the infinitely great."

"The principle of contradiction is not sufficient to prove anything."

"Probability is the very guide of life."

"The understanding works upon principles, and by the help of definitions."

"The wisest and greatest among men is often he who knows his own weakness best."

"We are dying from the moment we are born."

"If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from it."

"The heart wishes what the reason does not approve."

"All our reasoning ends in submission to feeling."

"What is this self which you claim to know?"

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, though all knowledge serves imagination."

"A man without passion is not truly a man."

"Good friends, good books, good wine—these are the essence of a good life."

"The beauty of nature consists in its diversity."

"Misery is the condition of human existence."