Monday, September 05, 2011

on blaise pascal, and smiling.

1) i really, really <3 tea

2) you see the smile that's on my mouth/
it's hiding the words that don't come out

3) i am amused by Pascal-

68 Men are never taught to be gentlemen, and are taught everything else;
and they never plume themselves so much on the rest of their knowledge as on knowing how to be gentlemen.
They only plume themselves on knowing the one thing they do not know.

4) and like him better than i did when studying stats-

72 _Man's disproportion._--
[This is where our innate knowledge leads us. If it be not true, there is no truth in man; and if it be true, he finds therein great cause for humiliation, being compelled to abase himself in one way or another. And since he cannot exist without this knowledge, I wish that, before entering on deeper researches into nature, he would consider her both seriously and at leisure, that he would reflect upon himself also, and knowing what proportion there is....] Let man then contemplate the whole of nature in her full and grand majesty, and turn his vision from the low objects which surround him. Let him gaze on that brilliant light, set like an eternal lamp to illumine the universe; let the earth appear to him a point in comparison with the vast circle described by the sun; and let him wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine point in comparison with that described by the stars in their revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.[30] In short it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that imagination loses itself in that thought.

No comments: