Quotation
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“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”
Blaise Pascal · Early modern philosophy · Early modern · notes of the 1650s–1662
What does it mean?
Not all knowledge arrives as a deduction, and the usual reading takes the heart as a way of grasping first principles and God immediately, not as a word for whim. He is not telling anyone to ignore reasons. He is saying that reason's procedures are not the only human access to truth. A rival reading uses the fragment as a trump card that ends discussion whenever a feeling is strong, which cuts it off from his account of principles the heart sees and reason must then trust; The French fragment is secure.
Did Blaise Pascal really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Secure French fragment, standard English of le coeur a ses raisons. In Pascal the heart is a way of knowing, especially first principles and God, not a word for whim. Lafuma 423. Editions differ on how the note sits inside Sellier's ordering. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
Pensées (Lafuma 423 / Sellier 680)
Approximate date: notes of the 1650s–1662.
How to use it
Do not lay the sentence on a disputed parking space in Bath as if a strong feeling had closed the case. If the meaning is a conviction not yet put into words, say that, and keep it open to the question of whether the heart here is seeing a principle or merely wanting the space. Pascal's heart can be a disciplined immediate sight; It can also be a name people borrow for a preference.
A mindset reading
Feeling is not automatically the heart in his sense, and the fragment is easy to recruit for self-deception. The heart, as he uses it nearby, knows first principles the way reason knows what follows from them. A mood that cannot say what it has seen is not yet that faculty, however often the proverb is repeated in its favour.
Understand the philosophy
Pascal distinguishes a mathematical mind from an intuitive mind, the esprit de finesse, and the heart fragment belongs with his distrust of a rationalism that can only derive and so cannot see its own starting points. The key term is the heart, an immediate cognitive power, not a synonym for emotion in general. He says we know this in a thousand things, and he links it to the knowledge of God. Lafuma numbers the fragment 423; Sellier gathers related notes in a larger dossier.
- knowledge
- love
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
Not all knowledge arrives as a deduction, and the usual reading takes the heart as a way of grasping first principles and God immediately, not as a word for whim. He is not telling anyone to ignore reasons. He is saying that reason's procedures are not the only human access to truth. A rival reading uses the fragment as a trump card that ends discussion whenever a feeling is strong, which cuts it off from his account of principles the heart sees and reason must then trust; The French fragment is secure.
Did Blaise Pascal really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Secure French fragment, standard English of le coeur a ses raisons. In Pascal the heart is a way of knowing, especially first principles and God, not a word for whim. Lafuma 423. Editions differ on how the note sits inside Sellier's ordering. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Pensées (Lafuma 423 / Sellier 680) Approximate date: notes of the 1650s–1662.