Pascal's Pensees - Blaise Pascal (top books to read txt) 📗

Abraham,
took nothing for himself, 502;
from stones can come children unto, 777;
and Gideon, 821

Absolutions, without signs of regret, 903, 904

Act, the last, is tragic, 210

Adam,
compared with Christ, 551;
his glorious state, 559;
forma futuri, 655

Advent, the time of the first, foretold, 756

Age,
influences judgment, 381;
the six ages, 654

Alexander, the example of his chastity, 103

Amusements, dangerous to the Christian life, 11

Animals, intelligence and instinct of, 340, 342

Antichrist,
miracles of, foretold by Christ, 825;
will speak openly against God, 842;
miracles of, cannot lead into error, 845

Apocalyptics, extravagances of the, 650

Apostles,
hypothesis that they were deceivers, 571;
foresaw heresies, 578;
supposition that they were either deceived or deceivers, 801

Aquinas, Thomas, 61, 338

Arcesilaus, the sceptic, became a dogmatist, 375

Archimedes, greatness of, 792

Arians, where they go wrong, 861

Aristotle, and Plato, 331

Arius, miracles in his time, 831

Athanasius, St., 867

Atheism, shows a certain strength of mind, 225

Atheists,
who seek, to be pitied, 190;
ought to say what is perfectly evident, 221;
objections of, against the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth, 222, 223;
objection of, 228

Augustine, St.,
saw that we work for an uncertainty, 234;
on the submission of reason, 270;
on miracles, 811;
his authority, 868

Augustus, his saying about Herod's son, 179

Authority, in belief, 260

Authors, vanity of certain, 43

Automatism, human, 252


Babylon, rivers of, 459

Beauty,
a certain standard of, 32;
poetical, 33

Belief,
three sources of, 245;
rule of, 260;
of simple people, 284;
without reading the Testaments, 286;
the Cross creates, 587;
reasons why there is no, in the miracles, 825

Bias, leads to error, 98

Birth,
noble, an advantage, 322;
persons of high, honoured and despised, 337

Blame, and praise, 501

Blood, example of the circulation of, 96

Body,
nourishment of the, 356;
the, and its members, 475, 476;
infinite distance between mind and, 792

Brutes, no mutual admiration among the, 401


Cæsar, compared with Alexander and Augustus, 132

Calling, chance decides the choice of a, 97

Calvinism, error of, 776

Canonical, the heretical books prove the, 568

Carthusian monk, difference between a soldier and a, 538

Casuists,
true believers have no pretext for following their laxity, 888;
submit the decision to a corrupted reason, 906;
cannot give assurance to a conscience in error, 908;
allow lust to act, 913

Causes, seen by the intellect and not by the senses, 234

Catholic, the, doctrine, of the Holy Sacrament, 861

Ceremonies, ordained in the Old Testament, are types, 679

Certain, nothing is, 234

Chance,
according to the doctrine of chance, one should believe in God, 233;
and work for an uncertainty, 234;
and seek the truth, 236;
gives rise to thoughts, 370

Chancellor, the position of the, uneral, 307

Character, the Christian, the human, and the inhuman, 532

Charity,
nothing so like it as covetousness, 662;
not a figurative precept, 664;
the sole aim of the Scripture, 669

Charron, the divisions of, 62

Children,
frightened at the face they have blackened, 88;
of Port-Royal, 151;
illustration of usurpation from, 295

China, History of, 592, 593

Christianity,
alone cures pride and sloth, 435;
is strange, 536;
consists in two points, 555;
evidence for, 563;
is wise and foolish, 587

Christians,
few true, 256;
without the knowledge of the prophecies and evidences, 287;
comply with folly, 338;
humility of, 537;
their hope, 539;
their happiness, 540;
the God of, 543

Church,
history of the, 857;
the, in persecution, like a ship in a storm, 858;
when in a good state, 860;
has always been attacked by opposite errors, 861;
the, and tradition, 866;
absolution and the, 869;
the Pope and the, 870;
the, and infallibility, 875;
true justice in the, 877;
the work of the, 880;
the discipline of the, 884;
the anathemas of the, 895

Cicero, false beauties in,