Pascal's Pensees Part 9
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_Variety._--Theology is a science, but at the same time how many sciences? A man is a whole; but if we dissect him, will he be the head, the heart, the stomach, the veins, each vein, each portion of a vein, the blood, each humour in the blood?
A town, a country-place, is from afar a town and a country-place. But, as we draw near, there are houses, trees, tiles, leaves, gra.s.s, ants, limbs of ants, in infinity. All this is contained under the name of country-place.
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_Thoughts._--All is one, all is different. How many natures exist in man? How many vocations? And by what chance does each man ordinarily choose what he has heard praised? A well-turned heel.
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_The heel of a slipper._--"Ah! How well this is turned! Here is a clever workman! How brave is this soldier!" This is the source of our inclinations, and of the choice of conditions. "How much this man drinks! How little that one!" This makes people sober or drunk, soldiers, cowards, etc.
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Chief talent, that which rules the rest.
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Nature imitates herself. A seed sown in good ground brings forth fruit.
A principle, instilled into a good mind, brings forth fruit. Numbers imitate s.p.a.ce, which is of a different nature.
All is made and led by the same master, root, branches, and fruits; principles and consequences.
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[Nature diversifies and imitates; art imitates and diversifies.]
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Nature always begins the same things again, the years, the days, the hours; in like manner s.p.a.ces and numbers follow each other from beginning to end. Thus is made a kind of infinity and eternity. Not that anything in all this is infinite and eternal, but these finite realities are infinitely multiplied. Thus it seems to me to be only the number which multiplies them that is infinite.
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Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again after two generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.
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He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.
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We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.
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_Contraries._--Man is naturally credulous and incredulous, timid and rash.
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Description of man: dependency, desire of independence, need.
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Condition of man: inconstancy, weariness, unrest.
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The weariness which is felt by us in leaving pursuits to which we are attached. A man dwells at home with pleasure; but if he sees a woman who charms him, or if he enjoys himself in play for five or six days, he is miserable if he returns to his former way of living. Nothing is more common than that.
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Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.[65]
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_Restlessness._--If a soldier, or labourer, complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
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_Weariness._[66]--Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without pa.s.sions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.
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Methinks Caesar was too old to set about amusing himself with conquering the world.[67] Such sport was good for Augustus or Alexander. They were still young men, and thus difficult to restrain. But Caesar should have been more mature.
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