Pensées

Blaise Pascal (1660)

For much of his life Pascal (1623-62) worked on a magnum opus which was never published in its intended form. Instead he left a mass of fragments which became known as the Pensees and they occupy a crucial place in Western philosophy and religious writing. His general intention was to confound scepticism about metaphysical questions. Some of the Pensees are fully developed literary reflections on the human condition, some contradict others, and some remain jottings whose meaning will never be clear. The most important are among the most powerful aphorisms about human experience and behavior ever written.

Section 1 Thoughts on Mind and on Style

Section 2 The Misery of Man without God

Section 3 Of the Necessity of the Wager

Section 4 Of the Means of Belief

Section 5 Justice and the Reason of Effects

Section 6 The Philosophers

Section 7 Morality and Doctrine

Section 8 The Fundamentals of the Christian Religion

Section 9 Perpetuity

Section 10 Typology

Section 11 The Prophecies

Section 12 Proofs of Jesus Christ

Section 13 The Miracles

Section 14 Appendix: Polemical Fragments