Paul Jensen’s Reviews > Pensées and the Provincial Letters > Status Update

"811. I should not be a Christian, but for the miracles, said Saint Augustine."

"800. The supposition that the apostles were impostors is very absurd. Let us think it out. Let us imagine those twelve men, assembled after the death of Jesus Christ, plotting to say that He was risen. By this they attack all the powers. The heart of man is strangely inclined to fickleness, to change, to promises, to gain."

"364. It is a rare thing for anyone to fear himself enough."

"The most unreasonable things in the world become most reasonable, because of the unruliness of men. What is less reasonable than to choose the eldest son of a queen to rule a State? We do not choose as captain of a ship the passenger who is of the best family."

"The government founded on opinion and imagination reigns for some time, and this government is pleasant and voluntary; that founded on might lasts forever"

#233 on his Wager: "Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is."

#194 Pascal caricatures the careless atheist who does not inquire his cause or purpose: "As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever either into annihilation or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall be for ever assigned."

"There are many people who listen to a sermon in the same way as they listen to vespers."

"Those honor nature well who teach that she can speak on everything, even on theology."