Blaise Pascal

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me…

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. It needs not that the entire universe should arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, should the universe crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the universe has the better of him. The universe knows nothing of this…