Blaise Pascal described human beings in his classic work Pensées as a strange and freakish mixture of “greatness and wretchedness,” as simultaneously both the “glory and refuse of the universe.” Part of man’s nobility is demonstrated in his unique ability as a reflective thinker to recognize his own wretchedness. Pascal thought only the Christian faith could account for this schizophrenic condition.
— Kenneth Richard Samples, from A World of Difference, kindle location 2102