Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and theologian, as well as a writer whose brilliant command of the language marked him as a master of French prose. His early, anonymous masterpiece Les Lettres Provinciales became the model for Voltaire’s polemics. Pascal’s Pensées, his last great work, remained unfinished at the time of his death at age thirty-nine.
Pascal's Pensées is widely considered to be a masterpiece, and a landmark in French prose. When commenting on one particular section (Thought #72), Sainte-Beuve praised it as the finest pages in the French language. Will Durant, in his 11-volume, compreh...[SEE MORE]