quote · Source-linked selection
When I consider the shortness of my life, lost in an eternity before and behind, “passing away as the remembrance of a guest who tarrieth but a day,” the little space I fill or behold in the infinite immensity of spaces, of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me—when I reflect this, I am filled with terror, and wonder why I am here and not there, for there was no reason why it should be the one rather than the other; why now rather than then. Who set me here? By whose command and rule were this time and place appointed me? How many kingdoms know nothing of us! The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me.
When I consider the shortness of my life, lost in an eternity before and behind, “passing away as the remembrance of a guest who tarrieth but a day,” the little space I fill or behold in the infinite immensity of spaces, of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me—when I reflect this, I am filled with terror, and wonder why I am here and not there, for there was no reason why it should be the one rather than the other; why now rather than then. Who set me here? By whose command and rule were this time and place appointed me? How many kingdoms know nothing of us! The eternal silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me.
Approximate author period: c. 1642 AD · renaissance
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Blaise Pascal
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1642 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint (1623–1662)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)
Page 11 · printed citation: Pascal (Pensées). · compiler notes excluded
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The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
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