I make no doubt... that these rules are simple, artless, and natural.
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Quotes by Blaise Pascal
These two states which it is necessary to know together in order to see the whole truth, being known separately, lead necessarily to one of these two vices, pride or indolence, in which all men are invariably led before grace, since if they do not remain in their disorders through laxity, they forsake them through vanity, so true is that which you have just repeated to me from St. Augustine, and which I find to a great extent; for in fact homage is rendered to them in many ways.
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All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.
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Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar and common.
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God only pours out his light into the mind after having subdued the rebellion of the will by an altogether heavenly gentleness which charms and wins it.
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You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire... You are therefore properly the king of desire... equal in this to the greatest kings of the earth... It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet.
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Nothing is more common than good things: the point in question is only to discriminate them; and it is certain that they are all natural and within our reach and even known to all mankind.
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Do not imagine that it is less an accident by which you find yourself master of the wealth which you possess, than that by which this man found himself king.
If it had pleased them [the legislators] to order that this wealth, after having been possessed by fathers during their life, should return to the republic after their death, you would have no reason to complain of it.
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Posted by: Mauro Lanari
There is almost nothing right or wrong which does not alter with a change in clime. A shift of three degrees of latitude is enough to overthrow jurisprudence. One's location on the meridin decides the truth, that or a change in territorial possession. Fundamental laws alter. What is right changes with the times. Strange jutice that is bounded by a river or mountain! The truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other.
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One must begin pitying unbelievers; they are wretched enough by their condition. We ought only to revile them where it is beneficial; but this does them harm.
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