Pensees

Seventeenth Century prodigy Blaise Pascal, like Isaac Newton, is most often remembered for his astounding contributions to math and physics. Seldom, however, are either recalled for their contributions to philosophy and theology. But it was his Catholic faith, once abandonded, which consumed Pascal in his later years. This burning love for God and for souls compelled him to put to paper his Pensees -- his thoughts:

"Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now, the order of thought is to begin with self, and with its Author and its end."

"Now, of what does the world think? Never of this, but of dancing, playing the lute, singing, making verses, running at the ring, etc., fighting, making oneself king, without thinking what it is to be a king and what to be a man."

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"Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree."

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"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?"