The Pensées (literally, "thoughts") represented a defense of the Christian religion by Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician. Pascal's own religious conversion had led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées were in many ways his life's work. Pascal's Wager is found here.

Although they appear to consist of ideas and jottings, some of which are incomplete, it is believed that Pascal had, prior to his untimely death in 1662, already planned out the order of the book and had arranged the individual scraps of paper, on which the "thoughts" were written. Those responsible for his effects, failing to recognise the basic structure of the work, handed them over to be edited, and they were published in 1669. But it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that scholars understood Pascal's intention, and present-day editions of the book contain his "thoughts" in more or less the order he left them.

Several attempts have been made to arrange the notes systematically; notable editions include those of Brunschvicg, Louis Lafuma, and (most recently) Sellier. (See, also, the monumental edition of his Oeuvres complètes (1964–1991), which is known as the Tercentenary Edition and was realized by Jean Mesnard; this edition reviews the dating, history, and critical bibliography of each of Pascal's texts.)

The original layout of the individual notes was in fact recorded in situ, although this was not reflected until recently in editions of the work. The structure of the apology is best described by H. F. Stewart D.D. in the preface to his translation of the Pensees: Part I shows "from Nature" that man is wretched without God, Part II shows "from Scripture" that Jesus is the Redeemer of mankind. Part I subdivides into Ia (man without God) and Ib (man with God) to show man's inherent wretchedness. The themes of Part I are largely in the tone of vanitas mundi, after the tradition of Solomon's book of Ecclesiastes, while the many short maxims inserted into the text are reminiscent of Solomon's Book of Proverbs.

Quotations

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On the abysses

"Let man contemplate Nature entire in her full and lofty majesty; let him put far from his sight the lowly objects that surround him; let him regard that blazing light, placed like an eternal lamp to illuminate the world; let the earth appear to him but a point within the vast circuit which that star describes; and let him marvel that this immense circumference is itself but a speck from the viewpoint of the stars that move in the firmament. And if our vision is stopped there, let imagination pass beyond... All this visible world is but an imperceptible element in the great bosom of nature. No thought can go so far... It is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere. This is the most perceivable feature of the almightiness of God, so that our imagination loses itself in this thought."

"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me."

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.

"He who sees himself thus will be frightened by himself, and, perceiving himself sustained... between these two abysses of infinity and nothing, will tremble... and will be more disposed to contemplate these marvels in silence than to explore them with presumption. For in the end, what is man in nature? A nothing in respect to the infinite, everything in respect to the nothing, a halfway between nothing and all. Infinitely far from comprehending the extremes, both the end and the beginning or principle of things are invincibly hidden in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing whence he has been drawn, and the infinite in which he is engulfed."*

* "The French language," said Sainte-Beuve, "has no finer pages than the simple and severe lines of this incomparable picture." Sainte-Beuve, Seventeenth Century, 174

On reason

"The wisest reason takes as her own principles those which the imagination of man has everywhere rashly introduced."

"Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason."

"To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher."

On heart and head

"The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing"

Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas.

On soul and body

"It is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself."

"What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, and imbecile norm of the earth; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe. Who shall unravel this confusion?"

On Man's fallen nature

"Man is only a disguise, a liar, a hypocrite, both to himself and to others."

"All men naturally hate one another; there could not be four friends in the world."

"How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement!"

On vanity

"We would never travel on the sea if we had no hope of telling about it later... We lose our lives with joy provided people talk about it... Even philosophers wish for admirers."

Yet Man is noble

"The grandeur of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable."

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.* The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him; a vapor, a drop of water, suffice to kill him. But when the universe has crushed him man will still be nobler than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and of its victory the universe knows nothing."

* L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau pensant.

Regarding the Wager

"You must wager; it is not optional... Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God exists... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists."

"Bless yourself with holy water, have Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make you believe, and will dull you*—will quiet your proudly critical intellect."

* cela vous fera croire, et vous abêtira

"Go to confession and communion; you will find it a relief and a strengthening."

On Futility

"Picture a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death; each day some are strangled in the sight of the rest; those who remain see their own condition in that of their fellows, looking at one another with sorrow and without hope, each awaiting his turn. This is the picture of the condition of man."

The mystery of God

"We understand nothing of the works of God unless we take it as a principle that He wishes to blind some and to enlighten others."

"This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet. If I saw no signs of a divinity, I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny ^*, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a God sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity."

Full text online

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• Etext of Pascal's Pensées (English, in various formats)

References

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Unfinished books | Books critical of Islam

Les Pensées | Les Pensées | 팡세 | パンセ