Q0060

Blaise Pascal

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
Thinker Blaise Pascal
School Early Modern Thought
Source Pensées §347
Theme Human Nature
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Pensées §347, within the tradition of Early Modern Thought. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of human nature, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Blaise Pascal's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Blaise Pascal. (n.d.). Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0060

MLA: Blaise Pascal. “Man is only a reed, the weakest in….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0060.

Chicago: Blaise Pascal. “Man is only a reed, the weakest in….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0060.

Same thinker

More from Blaise Pascal

  1. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
  2. All our dignity consists, then, in thought.
  3. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
  4. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
  5. All of humanity’s misfortune comes from one thing: not knowing how to remain quietly in a room.

All quotations by Blaise Pascal

Same theme

More on human nature

  1. Man is by nature a political animal.
  2. [In the state of nature, the life of man is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
  3. The heart of compassion is possessed by all; so too the hearts of shame, of respect, and of right and wrong.
  4. Human nature is bad; whatever is good about it is the product of deliberate activity (wei).
  5. That whereby humans differ from birds and beasts is slight; ordinary people discard it, the noble person preserves it.

Browse the human nature theme