Quotation
Last reviewed:
“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
Blaise Pascal · Early modern philosophy · Early modern · written 1650s; published 1670
What does it mean?
The usual reading hears a new astronomical fear: the spaces disclosed by the new science do not answer, and the silence, not the size alone, is what frightens. A competing reading treats the line as a romantic mood about pretty stars, which drops both the fright and the argument that a human being is lost between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. It is a single sentence among the Pensées on disproportion, beside fragments about a reed and about diversion. The papers were left unfinished. The fright is data for an apology, not a landscape caption.
Did Blaise Pascal really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Trotter's English of 'Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.' Sellier numbers it 233. Brunschvicg, which Trotter followed, numbers it 206. It is one sentence in the papers on human disproportion.
Where it comes from
Pensées, Sellier 233 (Brunschvicg 206), in W. F. Trotter's translation
Approximate date: written 1650s; published 1670.
How to use it
Standing in a dark car park in Norfolk after bad news, the size of the sky can feel like indifference. Pascal thinks that feeling is a real report, not an error to be tidied by a fact about galaxies. He also thinks people will do almost anything, including trivial noise, rather than stay with it. The sentence does not tell you to be frightened on purpose. It admits a fright that distraction is designed to cover.
A mindset reading
Notice when a large thought is being used as decoration. The habit is to let a disproportion unsettle you without immediately recruiting it as proof of a creed or of a nihilism. He will recruit it, later, for a religious argument. You can see the move and still grant the experience. Silence here is the absence of an answer, not the absence of sound.
Understand the philosophy
Pascal is writing an apology for the Christian religion out of unfinished notes, and this sentence belongs to the study of the human condition before the wager. The key contrast is between infinite spaces and a finite knower who wants a response. It sits near the thinking reed, a different fragment: weakness and thought, not silence. Trotter's numbering is Brunschvicg's. Modern French editions will say Sellier 233. The two numbers are one sentence.
- meaning
- knowledge
- death
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading hears a new astronomical fear: the spaces disclosed by the new science do not answer, and the silence, not the size alone, is what frightens. A competing reading treats the line as a romantic mood about pretty stars, which drops both the fright and the argument that a human being is lost between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. It is a single sentence among the Pensées on disproportion, beside fragments about a reed and about diversion. The papers were left unfinished. The fright is data for an apology, not a landscape caption.
Did Blaise Pascal really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Trotter's English of 'Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.' Sellier numbers it 233. Brunschvicg, which Trotter followed, numbers it 206. It is one sentence in the papers on human disproportion.
Which work is it in?
Pensées, Sellier 233 (Brunschvicg 206), in W. F. Trotter's translation Approximate date: written 1650s; published 1670.