"If, being duke and peer, you would not be contented with my standing uncovered before you, but should also wish that I should esteem you, I should ask you to show me the qualities that merit my esteem. If you did this, you would gain it, and I could not refuse it to you with justice; but if you did not do it, you would be unjust to demand it of me; and assuredly you would not succeed, were you the greatest prince in the world."

Blaise Pascal Mathematics See all quotes by Blaise Pascal →

React to this quote

More by Blaise Pascal

“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.”

“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the small space which I fill, or even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified, and wonder that I am here rather than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, or now rather than then. Who has set me here? By whose order and design have this place and time been destined for me?—Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis.It is not well to be too much at liberty. It is not well to have all we want.How many kingdoms know nothing of us!The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.”

“FEU. Dieu d'Abraham, Dieu d'Isaac, Dieu de Jacob, non des philosophes et savants. Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joie. Paix.”

“Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”

“Nature, which alone is good, is wholly familiar and common.”

“This art, which I call the art of persuading, and which, properly speaking, is simply the process of perfect methodical proofs, consists of three essential parts: of defining the terms of which we should avail ourselves by clear definitions, of proposing principles of evident axioms to prove the thing in question; and of always mentally substituting in the demonstrations the definition in the place of the thing defined.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Technology revolutionaries succeeded not because of some collectivist vision that seeks to regulate “fairness”, “neutrality”, “privacy” or “competition” through coercive state actions, or that views t…"

— Rand Paul

Politics1963

#justice

"Through sharing alone will justice be confirmed. Sharing alone will bring the peace desired by all the nations. When men share and destroy the walls of separation they will know at last the truth of t…"

— Benjamin Creme

Art1922–2016

#justice

"I dislike calling them stubs,” Lowbeer said. “They’re short because we’ve only just initiated them, by reaching into the past and making that first contact. We should call them branches, as they liter…"

— William Gibson

Literature1948–2008

#justice

"Carmichael was, like many Americans, a divided soul, part nomad and part homebody, who seemed a little bit at home everywhere, but was probably more so someplace else, if he could just find it."

— Wilfrid Sheed

Literature1930–2011

#justice