Pascal

Blaise Pascal -- Pensees (meaning pieces or fragments)

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise and diversions?
But take away ther diversions and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they will feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

How little pride the Christian feels in believing himself united to God! How little another grovels when he likens himself to the earth-worm! A fine way to meet life and death, good and evil!

When our passions impel us to do something we forget our duty. For example, if we like a book, we read it when we ought to be doing something else. But to remember our duty we need only decide to do something we dislike; we then make the excuse of something else to be done, and thus remember our duty.

When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board a ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.