Blaise Pascal Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by Blaise Pascal with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
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“The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”
Meaning & context
Pascal humorously links brevity with revision time: concise expression can require more deliberate work than writing at length under pressure.
Source details
The Provincial Letters, Letter XVI, dated December 4, 1656, Project Gutenberg #73959. Pascal apologizes for the unusual length and rapid succession of his letters, saying the present one is long because he had no leisure to make it shorter. The sentence belongs to translated seventeenth-century religious polemic and is a witty observation about composition, not a measured productivity law.
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“The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not.”
Meaning & context
Human judgment includes forms of intuition, feeling, and commitment that cannot always be reduced to explicit logical argument.
Source details
Pensées; Pascal contrasts forms of knowing associated with the heart and with discursive reason.
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“Discourses on humility give occasion for pride to the boastful, and for humility to the humble.”
Meaning & context
Pascal points to a self-referential danger: even learning or speaking about humility can become another stage for vanity unless a person is willing to examine the motives behind the performance.
Source details
The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, C. Kegan Paul translation, Project Gutenberg #46921. The next sentence extends the paradox by observing how difficult it is to speak humbly about humility.
