A Pascal Miscellany

136 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.

924 It is true that there is something painful in beginning to practice piety, but this pain does not arise from the beginnings of piety within us, but from the impiety that is still there.

110 We know that we are not dreaming. Yet however unable we may be to prove this by reason, this inability demonstrates nothing but the weakness of our reason, and not the uncertainty of all our knowledge, as they assert. […] Our inability must therefore do nothing except humble reason –which would like to be the judge of everything – while not confuting our certainty. As if reason could be the only way in which we can learn!”

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, (1669).