Blaise Pascal Quotes

In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite.

Be moderate in everything, including moderation.

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center.

He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.

People desire to separate their worlds into polarities of dark and light, ugly and beautiful, good and evil, right and wrong, inside and outside. Polarities serve us in our learning and growth, but as souls we are all.

You can't ever get too high or too low.

The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.

Moderation in all things. And even moderation in moderation. Don't get too much moderation, you know?

Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys.

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem?

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

There is a medium in all things. There are certain limits beyond, or within which, that which is right cannot exist.

There is a measure in everything. There are fixed limits beyond which and short of which right cannot find a resting place.

Limits are a secret blessing, and bounty can be a curse.

Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart.

In avoiding one vice fools rush into the opposite extreme.

Speech is better than silence; silence is better than speech.

You are extraordinary within your limits, but your limits are extraordinary!

Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.

Yet for every peak there is a valley.

Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape.

Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.