Blaise Pascal

1623–1662

French mathematician

…engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified.

TOPICS: infinity

Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.

TOPICS: reason

Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.

TOPICS: infinity

Humble thyself, impotent reason!

TOPICS: reason

He is very intelligent but he is not a mathematician: this as you know is a great defect.

TOPICS: mathematicians, intelligence

SOURCE: From a letter of Pascal to Fermat