Happiness is neither outside us nor within us. It is in God, and both outside and within us.

pensée 26, blaise pascal

I blame equally those who decide to praise man, those who blame him, and those who want to be diverted. I can only approve those who search in anguish.

pensée 24, blaise pascal

[Philosophers] inspired movements of pure greatness and that is not man's state.
They inspired movements of pure baseness and that is not man's state.
...
We need moments of greatness, arising not from merit but from grace, having passed through the state of abjectness.

pensée 17, blaise pascal

True nature having been lost, everything becomes natural. In the same way, the true good having been lost, everything becomes their true good.

pensée 16, blaise pascal


when every man does what is right in his own eyes. God gives every man what his heart desires. even if that heart is unrepentant. 

When we want to think of God, is there nothing which turns us aside, tempts us to think of other things? All that is bad, and it is born with us.

pensée 14, blaise pascal

The two Testaments look to Jesus Christ, the Old as its expectation and the New as its model, and both have him as their centre.

pensée 7, blaise pascal

If man is not made for God, why is he only happy with God?
If man is made for God, why is he so hostile to God?

pensée 18, blaise pascal

right before cain kills his brother, he is angry because his sacrifice was not accepted. and God says to him,

"Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it."

genesis 4:7


yet one chapter earlier, we find God telling eve:

"I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you."


genesis 3:16

sin is cain's wife. i think milton was quite on track to portray sin as a woman. the devil is definitely masculine, but sin seems to be attributed with feminine qualities. it hearkens back, of course, to lady folly in proverbs. this makes Christ's temptations all the more interesting, because you've got satan as the prospective father-in-law pimping out his daughter, sin, to the Son of Man, who instead chooses the other woman before Him: israel. 

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

proverbs 4:18


now don't that make you extremely frightened and incredibly encouraged. 

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

st. paul, 1 corinthians 1:17-25

remember Solomon. truly, all is vanity, and much studying is wearisome to the soul. 

from paradise lost, john milton's epic catalog of the demons who became the gods of pagan peoples.  

1. Moloch
2. Chemos
3. Baalim
4. Ashtaroth
5. Astoreth/Astarte
6. Thammuz
7. Dagon
8. Rimmon
9. Osiris
10. Isis
11. Orus
12. Belial

for milton, as for homer and virgil, numbers are significant. these are the tribes of the demons, a new nation of evil. virgil has 12 foes for aeneas to defeat before the great battle for latium, so it makes sense that Christ would have 12 foes to defeat in his great fight. if my memory is right, the 13th foe that is listed for aeneas is not a part of the epic catalog, but is the most worthy opponent: turnus. similarly, perhaps Christ's most worthy opponent is listed 13th and outside the catalog: beelzebub. this leaves satan out of the picture, though, so obviously i need to think about it more.  

                 but he, my inbred enemy,

Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart 

Made to destroy. I fled and cried out 'Death!'

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed

From all her caves, and back resounded 'Death!'

john milton, paradise lost, II.785-789

A mind not to be changed by place or time. 

The mind is its own place and in itself

Can make a Heaven of hell, a hell of Heaven. 

john milton, paradise lost, I.253-255

lewis says much the same thing of the postmodern relativists: they will be the ones in the corners of hell saying "i just have to wake up... it's all in my mind, i just have to wake up." 

Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, 

Doing or suffering, but of this be sure, 

To do aught good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being the contrary to his high will

Whom we resist. 

john milton, paradise lost, I.157-162