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

— Blaise Pascal Pensées (1669)

Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand on le fait par conscience.

Original text (French)

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Variants

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction (trans. W.F. Trotter)

Topics

Good and Evil

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.

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)

Our reason is always disappointed by the inconsistency of appearances.

Pensées (1669)

All Blaise Pascal quotes →

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I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

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Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

Henry David Thoreau Walden (1854)

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.