The Wisdom of Pascal

Blaise Pascal could lay it down, and lay it down he did systematically (seemingly anyway), in his great book of French prose, and uncommon wisdom: Pensées. Pascal was a great user of reason in his thoughts about the limits of reason.

Here are a few excerpts that Big Frank offers for reflection:

"Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."

"Respect means; put yourself out. That may look pointless, but it is quite right, because it amounts to saying: I should certainly put myself out if you needed it, because I do so when you do not; besides, respect serves to distinguish the great. If respect meant sitting in an armchair we should be showing everyone respect and then there would be no way of marking distinction, but we make the distinction quite clear by putting ourselves out."

"All our reasoning comes down to surrending to our feeling. But fancy is like and also unlike feeling, so that we cannot distinguish between these two opposites. One person says that my feeling is mere fancy, another that his fancy is feeling. We should have a rule, Reason is available but can be bent in any direction. And so there is no rule."

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