Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.
Blaise PascalRead
The sum of a man's problems come from his inability to be alone in a silent room.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that many of our troubles stem from our discomfort with solitude and silence.
Blaise Pascal's quote highlights the idea that an individual's inner turmoil often arises from a fear of being alone with their thoughts. In a world filled with distractions, many people struggle to confront their own emotions and reflections in silence, leading to a myriad of personal problems. It serves as a reminder to embrace solitude as a pathway to self-discovery and clarity.
In practice
During a workshop on mindfulness, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of solitude for mental health.
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?
As I go clowning my sentimental way into eternity, wrestling with all my problems of estrangement and communion, sincerity and simulation, ambition and acquiescence, I shuttle between worrying whether I matter at all and whether anything else matters but me.
Misogyny runs deeper than religion.
Iβve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.
I am I plus my surroundings; and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.
The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.
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