Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Blaise PascalRead
What reason have atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that what has been, should be again? Is it more difficult to come into being than to return to it.
Interpretation
Pascal questions the reasoning of atheists concerning resurrection and existence.
In this quote, Blaise Pascal challenges the atheistic perspective on existence and resurrection, suggesting that it is not inherently more complex or improbable for something to come into being than for it to return to a prior state. He implies that the nature of existence and the potential for resurrection should not be dismissed without consideration of the paradox of being and non-being.
In practice
In a debate on the existence of a higher power, you might use this quote to underscore the complexity of existence.
Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.
Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it.
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him Until he understands That he is a monster that passes all understanding.
What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself?
I cannot agree with those who say that they have 'new truth' to teach. The two words seem to me to contradict each other; that _x000D_ which is new is not true. It is the old that is true, for truth is as old as God himself.
What is more absurd and more impious than to attribute the name of Lucifer to the devil, that is, to personified evil. The intellectual Lucifer is the spirit of intelligence and love; it is the paraclete, it is the Holy Spirit, while the physical Lucifer is the great agent of universal magnetism.
Utopias now appear much more realizable than one used to think. We are now faced with a different new worry: How to prevent their realization.
The moon had risen behind him, the color of a shark's underbelly. It lit the ruined walls, and the skin of his arms and hands, with its sickly light, making him long for a mirror in which to study his face. Surely he'd be able to see the bones beneath the meat; the skull gleaming the way his teeth gleamed when he smiled. After all, wasn't that what a smile said? Hello, world, this is the way I'll look when the wet parts are rotted.
How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?
Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
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