Q0495

Blaise Pascal

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

True eloquence mocks eloquence.
Thinker Blaise Pascal
School Proto-Existential Thought
Source Pensées
Theme Sincerity
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Pensées, within the tradition of Proto-Existential 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 sincerity, 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.). True eloquence mocks eloquence. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0495

MLA: Blaise Pascal. “True eloquence mocks eloquence..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0495.

Chicago: Blaise Pascal. “True eloquence mocks eloquence..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0495.

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. All our dignity consists, then, in thought.
  4. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
  5. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

All quotations by Blaise Pascal

Same theme

More on sincerity

  1. Sincerity is the Way of Heaven; making oneself sincere is the way of human beings.
  2. All things are already complete in me. There is no greater delight than to turn within and find sincerity.
  3. The noble person is cautious about what is not seen, apprehensive about what is not heard…therefore watchful when alone.
  4. Those who wish to cultivate themselves first rectify the mind; those who wish to rectify the mind first make the intention sincere.
  5. I am looking for a human being.

Browse the sincerity theme