I am amending this old post as I have had another look in Pascal’s “Pensees” and I cannot find the reference. What I can find is that Leo Tolstoy quotes the saying as by Pascal, buts that’s as far as it goes.
The sentiments expressed, I will admit, sounds like something Pascal would write – very pithy and very apt. So I have kept it.
How about this for as true an observation as you will ever read:
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) in his ‘Pensees’, it is here assumed that he wrote:-
“There is no greater unhappiness than when a person starts to fear the truth lest it denounce him.”
I wonder if any politician; any businessmen; any cheating husband or cheating wife; any schoolyard or office bully is prepared to stand up and be counted?
And likewise how about this one – again quoted by Tolstoy. And again, something that Pascal would write I believe:-
‘Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.’
Tolstoy also wrote, in about 1880, that:-
"Men of our times believe that none of the absurdity and cruelty of our lives, with the ridiculous wealth of a few and the embittered poverty of the majority, and the arms and wars, is seen by anyone and that nothing prevents them from continuing such a life."
You see, Justice and Ethics have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. And I will fight injustice when and wherever I see it.
Tolstoy also wrote, in about 1880, that:-
"Men of our times believe that none of the absurdity and cruelty of our lives, with the ridiculous wealth of a few and the embittered poverty of the majority, and the arms and wars, is seen by anyone and that nothing prevents them from continuing such a life."
You see, Justice and Ethics have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. And I will fight injustice when and wherever I see it.
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