# Pascal's most famous thoughts

From the thinking reed to Cleopatra's nose: the lines from Blaise Pascal's Pensées and Provincial Letters that are still quoted.

- 0 votes · 15 items
- Aug 9, 2020 · laura_citations
- https://even.best/en/l/2894/pascal-s-most-famous-thoughts

## Top 14

1. **The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
2. **Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
3. **Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have changed.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
4. **The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
5. **Man is neither angel nor beast, and the misfortune is that whoever wants to play the angel plays the beast.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
6. **I have discovered that all human unhappiness comes from one thing: not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
7. **I have made this letter longer only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Provincial Letters, XVI.
8. **The self is hateful.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
9. **Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
10. **Unable to make justice strong, we have made strength just.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
11. **True eloquence mocks eloquence; true morality mocks morality.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
12. **What is man in nature? Nothing compared with the infinite, everything compared with nothing, a middle point between nothing and everything.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
13. **The human condition: inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
14. **The most important thing in life is the choice of a trade.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.
15. **We never seek things, but the seeking of things.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pensées.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.