Q0241

Blaise Pascal

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

All our dignity consists, then, in thought.
Thinker Blaise Pascal
School Christian Existential Precursor
Source Pensées §347 (Brunschvicg)
Theme Dignity
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Pensées §347 (Brunschvicg), within the tradition of Christian Existential Precursor. 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 dignity, 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.). All our dignity consists, then, in thought. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0241

MLA: Blaise Pascal. “All our dignity consists, then, in thought..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0241.

Chicago: Blaise Pascal. “All our dignity consists, then, in thought..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0241.

Same thinker

More from Blaise Pascal

  1. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
  2. Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
  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 dignity

  1. Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
  2. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.
  3. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
  4. I rebel — therefore we exist.
  5. Man is a sacred thing to man.

Browse the dignity theme