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I hold it equally impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole, and to know the whole without knowing the parts in detail. The eternity of things in itself or in God must also astonish our brief duration.

— Blaise Pascal

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Mathematics

More quotes by Blaise Pascal

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Christian piety annihilates the egotism of the heart; worldly politeness veils and represses it.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it conscientiously.

Pensées (1669)

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

Force and not opinion is the queen of the world; but it is opinion that uses the force.

Pensées (1669)

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Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.

Bertrand Russell

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

Núria Añó

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Blaise Pascal (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.