QuoteProject
Why God has instituted Prayer:— To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation.
Blaise Pascal
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Prayer is a means for humans to understand their power in causing outcomes.

In this quote, Blaise Pascal speaks to the profound role of prayer in human existence, suggesting that it is not merely a ritual or formality, but a vital communication from God that conveys to individuals the significant power they have in influencing events and outcomes in their lives through their intentions and actions. It underscores the idea that humans are not passive observers but active participants in the divine plan, entrusted with the ability to affect change through their prayers.

Themes

PrayerCausationDignityFaithInfluence

In practice

Example use cases

In a sermon discussing the power of prayer in personal challenges, one could quote Pascal.

More from Blaise Pascal

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Blaise PascalRead
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.
Blaise PascalRead
Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it.
Blaise PascalRead
Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.
Blaise PascalRead
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.
Blaise PascalRead
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?
Blaise PascalRead

Similar quotes

It is the Germans who are responsible for the fact that I became a fabricator of arms. If not for them, I would have constructed agricultural machines. (...) If someone asks me how I can sleep at night knowing that my arms have killed millions of people, I respond that I have no problem sleeping, my conscience is clean. I constructed arms to defend my country.
Mikhail KalashnikovRead
The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens.
Camille PagliaRead
One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty.
H. L. MenckenRead
I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone.
Henry David ThoreauRead
When we come face-to-face with one down a dark alley, we're going to be having a shufti to see if it's solid, aren't we, we're not going to be asking, 'Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?
J. K. RowlingRead
Racism and bigotry should never fuel any administration's policies. Calls to send anyone 'back' contradict who we should be as a country and the ideals for which we stand.
Deb HaalandRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.