< Page:Blaise Pascal works.djvu
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78

PASCAL'S THOUGHTS

Thus not only the zeal of those who seek Him proves God, but also the blindness of those who seek Him not.


201

All the objections of this one and that one only go against themselves, and not against religion. All that infidels say…


202

[From those who are in despair at being without faith, we see that God does not enlighten them; but as to the rest, we see there is a God who makes them blind.]


203

Fascinatio nugacitatis.[1]—That passion may not harm us, let us act as if we had only eight hours to live.


204

If we ought to devote eight hours of life, we ought to devote a hundred years.


205

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis.[2]


206

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.


207

How many kingdoms know us not?

  1. ↑ "The bewitching of naughtiness."―Wisdom, iv. 12.
  2. ↑ "The remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day."―Wisdom, v. 14.
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