Shane > Shane's Quotes

“If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.”
― Blaise Pascal

“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”
― Blaise Pascal

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
― Blaise Pascal

“When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.”
― Blaise Pascal

“Knowing God without knowing our wretchedness leads to pride. Knowing our wretchedness without knowing God leads to despair. Knowing Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.”
― Blaise Pascal

“For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.”
― Blaise Pascal

“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.”
― Blaise Pascal

“Unless we know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, concupiscence, weakness, wretchedness and unrighteousness, we are truly blind. And if someone knows all this and does not desire to be saved, what can be said of him?”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright”
― Blaise Pascal

“Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard , The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

“It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“It is perhaps the misfortune of my life that I am interested in far too much but not decisively in any one thing; all my interests are not subordinated in one but stand on an equal footing.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The matter is quite simple. The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

“And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

“When I was young, I forgot how to laugh in the cave of Trophonius; when I was older, I opened my eyes and beheld reality, at which I began to laugh, and since then, I have not stopped laughing. I saw that the meaning of life was to secure a livelihood, and that its goal was to attain a high position; that love’s rich dream was marriage with an heiress; that friendship’s blessing was help in financial difficulties; that wisdom was what the majority assumed it to be; that enthusiasm consisted in making a speech; that it was courage to risk the loss of ten dollars; that kindness consisted in saying, “You are welcome,” at the dinner table; that piety consisted in going to communion once a year. This I saw, and I laughed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard