The Thinking Reed

"Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed." A drop of water can kill him; the universe can crush him without noticing. And yet the man is nobler than what kills him, because he knows that he dies, and the universe knows nothing of its advantage. The whole of Pascal's picture of the human is in this image – the same creature at once wretched and great, and it is precisely its power to see its own wretchedness that makes it great. To avoid looking too hard, the human flees into diversion – the bustle and the games that keep a person from sitting alone in a quiet room.