Read Pensées

>I don't get the Anglo reverence to the French language.

What should we call lingerie my friend? Clothlets? Bwah!

I didn't mean loanwords, but titles.

The way people make this book sound is that its just Le Wager. Is this actually true

>Is this actually true

No. There's a lot more to it. The way people boil down famous works to a single statement or idea is reprehensible. Intro classes in the universities are especially culpable here.

Why's that?

He was impersonating an atheist in this fragment. is main strategy was examinating the atheistic mindset and pushing it to its absolute logical conclusion to see how hair-rising it is to live as a fully-conscious atheist.
There a fragment in which he notes that to correct a mistake, you first have to put yourself in the mindset of the one who committed, so as to see how and when exactly it was committed, and where you should exert strength in order to correct it.
It's one of the best simple-yet-subtle advice I've ever come across in a book.

Pascal was a very based thinkers, I often think of him as the quintessential exemple of a philosopher that towers above most other philosophers.

Perhaps 'thoughts" alone sounds silly in English as a standalone title? Euphony is important. For instance Gregory House sounds badass in English while in French it's Grégoire Maison, which basically evokes "Mr. Random Nobody".

Read it a month or so ago, and it spoke to me very deeply. I can only reaffirm that it is indeed a masterpiece, as other anons have said. It has given me comfort and strength, and spurred me forward/helped me along on my search for God and for Truth.

I suppose you could say that, although that isn't exactly how I interpreted the writing.

>"For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up."

More like a contrast between Absolute Being and Nothingness.

>"What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or their end. All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne towards the Infinite. Who will follow these marvellous processes? The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do so."
>" . . . "
>"The visible extent of the world visibly exceeds us; but as we exceed little things, we think ourselves more capable of knowing them. And yet we need no less capacity for attaining the Nothing than the All. Infinite capacity is required for both, and it seems to me that whoever shall have understood the ultimate principles of being might also attain to the knowledge of the Infinite. The one depends on the other, and one leads to the other. These extremes meet and reunite by force of distance, and find each other in God, and in God alone."

>"Let us then take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the Nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the Infinite."
>"Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body holds in the expanse of nature."
>"Limited as we are in every way, this state which holds the mean between two extremes is present in all our impotence. Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tend to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing (I know someone who cannot understand that to take four from nothing leaves nothing). First principles are too self-evident for us; too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to over-pay our debts. Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur. We feel neither extreme heat nor extreme cold. Excessive qualities are prejudicial to us and nor perceptible by the senses; we do not feel but suffer them. Extreme youth and extreme age hinder the mind, as also too much and too little education. In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them."

Some of you seem to know a lot about Pascal. May I ask a question? Who was his greatest influence? What intellectual lineage does he fall into?

>"This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses."
>"Let us therefore not look for certainty and stability. Our reason is always deceived by fickle shadows; nothing can fix the finite between two Infinites, which both enclose and fly from it."

He describes (and laments) the human condition, the fact of our entry into the world with a largely defined and determined nature and a destiny that is partly charted, partly free, how we are made in God’s image–and thus capable of rational thought and freedom of choice–but how our reason is clouded, and our wills are depraved. We are broken creatures and would be hopelessly lost if it were not for divine grace. In his image of human life without God as being wretched and the human condition as being marked by restlessness, ennui, and anxiety, Pascal conjures up dreadful images of silent infinite space, of void and darkness echoing Augustine's comparisons of the human soul to a deep abyss and how he likens it to the Nothingness preceding the Creation, and his teaching that without the light of God, we are but a dark emptiness. Pascal does have an answer to this state of misery, however: extreme inwardness, a fanatical absorption in mental and spiritual life.

Just trying to coax people to go into the details

St. Augustine was the biggest. If you're looking for people to read before Pascal I'd put him on the top of the list, then it might be useful to go through some Aquinas and Spinoza, though I wouldn't count them as Pascal's "influences". As for direct influences who you can truly see shining through in his work, I'd add Descartes (of course) and Epictetus. But again, St. Augustine is number one.

I tried
It's just too much of mess
Plus he's quoting Montaigne a lot (maybe too much)

>too much of a mess*

If I wanted more ALL YALL LIL LOL PIZZA MY DUDE!11 I'd just read Catholic twitter.

get married and then have sex

yeah with your mom

Montaigne was also a major influence, and if Spinoza and Descartes were influences then they were negative influences. He also seemed to be a bit ambivalent about Aquinas.
it's not a book you read front-to-back in one sitting but to leaf through when needed

Damn bro u gonna have a babby bro soon. Get ready to see this babby who looks like your babby daddy

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It's crazy how many people Augustine influenced. Everyone from Calvin to Heidegger. He truly made his mark on the world.

I wasn't counting Spinoza and Aquinas as influences, but rather suggesting them as what to read before Pascal, specifically Aquinas' "Treatise on Divine Government" and "The Foundations of the Moral Life" by Spinoza. I'd also recommend, specifically, "On the Immortality of the Soul" by Saint Augustine, the Dialogue with Death & the Brahmana from The Upanishads, The Essence of Mind from the Surangama Sutra, and The Twin Verses through The Brahmana from The Dhammapada. This will be a very enlightening and exciting journey, and I just felt like I should take this opportunity to recommend that particular collection of writings.

Good old Saint Augustine. He is someone whose thought I don't see myself being able to escape without a great struggle. Like Marx.

Hehe

I've heard it changed Bolaño's life as a writer, so i'm fucking excited. Will read it as soon as i finish Dante.