Vanity's Blindness
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

The author observes that human vanity is revealed through our constant need for diversion, which serves only to mask the inherent sadness and 'nothingness' we feel when left alone with ourselves.

...to seek greatness! 162 He who will know fully the vanity of man has only to consider the causes and effects of love. The cause is a je ne sais quoi (Corneille),[76] and the effects are dreadful. This je ne sais quoi, so small an object that we cannot recognise it, agitates a whole country, princes, armies, the entire world. Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered. 163 Vanity.--The cause and the effects of love: Cleopatra. 164
He who does not see the vanity of the world is himself very vain. Indeed who do not see it but youths who are absorbed in fame, diversion, and the thought of the future? But take away diversion, and you will see them dried up with weariness. They feel then their nothingness without knowing it; for it is indeed to be unhappy to be in insufferable sadness as soon as we are reduced to thinking of self, and have no diversion.
165 Thoughts.--In omnibus requiem quæsivi.[77] If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy. 166 Diversion.--Death is easier to bear without thinking of it, than is the thought of death without peril. 167 The miseries of human life have established all this: as men have seen this, they have taken up diversion. 168 Diversion.--As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken i...
2
Diversion's Deadly Comfort
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

Pascal contends that diversion is a tragic consolation because it prevents us from reflecting on our own misery and seeking a genuine remedy, leading us blindly toward death.

...e himself immortal; but, not being able to do so, it has occurred to him to prevent himself from thinking of death. 170 Diversion.--If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the Saints and God.--Yes; but is it not to be happy to have a faculty of being amused by diversion?--No; for that comes from elsewhere and from without, and thus is dependent, and therefore subject to be disturbed by a thousand accidents, which bring inevitable griefs. 171 Misery.--
The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.
172 We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sig...
2
The King's Distraction
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

The author observes that even those in high positions, such as kings, rely on trivial diversions to avoid the painful contemplation of their own domestic sorrows and human fragility.

...im every other thought of the mind. This man, born to know the universe, to judge all causes, to govern a whole state, is altogether occupied and taken up with the business of catching a hare. And if he does not lower himself to this, and wants always to be on the strain, he will be more foolish still, because he would raise himself above humanity; and after all he is only a man, that is to say capable of little and of much, of all and of nothing; he is neither angel nor brute, but man.] 141
Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure even of kings. 142 Diversion.--Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in itself to make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is? Must he be diverted from this thought like ordinary folk? I see well that a man is made happy by diverting him from the view of his domestic sorrows so as to occupy all his thoughts with the care of dancing well. But will it be the same with a king, and will he be happier in the pursuit of these idle amusements than in the contemplation of his greatness?
And what more satisfactory object could be presented to his mind? Would it not be a deprivation of his delight for him to occupy his soul with the thought of how to adjust his steps to the cadence of an air, or of how to throw a [ball] skilfully, instead of leaving it to enjoy quietly the contemplation of the majestic glory which encompasses him? Let us make the trial; let us leave a king all alone to reflect on himself quite at leisure, without any gratification of the senses, without any care...
2
End of shuffled session