Quotation by Blaise Pascal

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Lettres Provinciales (1657)"Memorial 1654" Selections, ed. R.H. Popkin, Macmillan, New York (1989)PensÃ¨es (c. 1659)PensÃ©es (1670), trans. J.M. Dent & Sons, London (1931)PensÃ©es (1670)

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past, the (22) despair (13) death (12) love (12) childhood (11) future, the (10) aging (10) time (9) writers and writing (7) old age (7)

We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), French scientist, philosopher. repr. Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago (1952). Pensées, no. 172 (1670), trans. J.M. Dent & Sons, London (1931).

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