Irza Fidah's Key Ideas from Thoughts On Religion And Philosophy
by Blaise Pascal

We are not content with the life we have in ourselves and in our individual being. We wish to live an imaginary life in the thoughts of others, and for this purpose, strive to make a figure in the world.

Curiosity is nothing but vanity. Men in general wish for knowledge merely that they may talk about it. They would never take a voyage, if they were only to enjoy their adventures, without the prospect of conversing with some one respecting them.

Therefore, to know the one, we must know the other. Thus, all things being naturally effects and causes, ends and instruments, directly or indirectly, and held together by a natural though imperceptible tie, which unites objects the most dissimilar and most distant, Pascal consider it to be as impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole, as to know the whole without knowing the parts in detail.

The least that may justly be required of those who are inclined to hostility against Religion is, that they should first take care to understand what its pretentions really are.

We may know that an infinity exists, and, at the same time, its nature may be incomprehensible. Thus, for example, we know it to be false that numbers are finite, and therefore infer that they are infinite. But that infinity itself we do not comprehend. It cannot be even, it cannot be odd; for is we add unity, its nature will not be changed; yet it is a number and every number is either even or odd, every finite number at least. We may, the, know assuredly, that there is a God, though we know not what he is.

The highest attainment of reason is to know that there are an infinite number of things beyond its reach.

If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural.

The errors of many persons are more dangerous from being founded on some truth.

Our self-will is never satisfied, even when it has obtained all it desires; but we are satisfied the instant we renounce it.

The law does not destroy nature, but corrects and informs it; grace does not destroy the law, but gives the power to obey it.

Force is the queen of the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes us of force.

In all human things, there is a mixture of truth and falsehood.