Pascal

Thanks to Doug, I decided to get interested in Blaise "Monsieur le Smart@$$" Pascal.
Monsieur le Smart@$$was his middle name according to Doug. Folks, I found out that Doug was just s**ting me on that. As far as I can discover, this Blaise Pascal fella didn't have a middle name.

I did read up a little on him though. Thought I'd educate myself just a tad. I read this:

Born at Clermont-Ferrand, 19 June 1623; died in Paris, 19 August 1662. He was the son of Etienne Pascal, advocate at the court of Aids of Clermont, and of Antoinette Bégon.

Then I just sort of wandered off in a daydream, so that's all I can tell you about Blaise Pascal. Oh, 'course I already knew about Pascal's Wager. Had to learn that in Philosophy 101. You know that one. It says that you might as well believe in God. Just in case there is one. Like that. I always thought that was chicken. I've got courage enough not to believe.

And I knew that one of his most famous works is the Pensees. I never read that, so I don't know if he was talkin' about the male anatomy and just couldn't spell. Probably not, seein' as how he was a prodigy and all.

The only other think I know about him, other than he was an important genius, is that he was ugly. There, I'm done I think. Don't know one other thing.

Except there's a quote site that has some quotes by him like, "I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room." Now, I kinda like this, 'cause it means that women can't be the cause of evil. Also, it refutes the notion that it's the love of money that is the root of all evil, so it's interesting on that front too.

He also said, "Since we cannot know all that there is to be know about anything, we ought to know a little about everything." I vote for that. Well, not for knowing a little bit about absolutely everything I guess, but the part about not knowing so much about anything. I've always been a skimmer myself. I just look at leaves from the top. Don't want to turn one over and see what's underneath. Usually a worm.

Another quote is "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread." Not sure what this means. There's never any silence around me. You can ask anyone.

And he said this: "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of." I love that. I never knew that he was the one who said it. But I know that I've heard it and liked it. He was a genius mathematician and he said something like that. So I sort of like him I think. Just a little bit, me being a skimmer and all. Don't want to get into him that deep.


On another front, Happy Birthday to my first born: dddragon.