Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
What These Words Mean
There are moments when your mind feels stocked with facts, but your life still feels undecided. You can list pros and cons cleanly, you can explain yourself convincingly, and yet something in you stays quiet and unconvinced. That is the kind of inner pause these words touch: the space between being able to argue and being able to know.
Start with “We know truth.” On the surface, that is a simple claim: truth is something you can arrive at, something that can be known rather than merely guessed. It suggests a steadiness, like there are real answers that aren’t just personal preference. Underneath, it also carries a humble comfort. You are not trapped in endless uncertainty. You can recognize what is real, what holds, what is worthy of trust, even when the world feels loud with competing opinions.
Then comes “not only by reason,” and it narrows the focus to one familiar tool. Reason is the part of you that compares evidence, checks consistency, and asks for clarity. It is the voice that says, “Show me what follows from what.” In everyday life, it is the way you try to be fair to yourself: you don’t want to be fooled by impulse, and you don’t want to mistake intensity for accuracy. The deeper pull here is about dignity. Your mind matters. Your ability to think is not a cold accessory; it is one of the ways you protect what is true from what is merely persuasive.
The quote pivots on the connectors “not only” and “but also,” insisting on addition rather than replacement.
When it says “but also by the heart,” the surface meaning is direct: there is another way you come to know, and it comes from the heart. Not romance, not sentimentality, just the center in you that recognizes meaning, courage, and sincerity. It is the part that feels the weight of a decision before you can fully explain it. It is the knot in your stomach when something is off, and the quiet ease when something fits. You might notice it in a small moment: you’re rereading a message you could send, your phone warm in your palm, and the room is still except for the soft hum of a heater. Reason tells you the wording is polite. Your heart tells you whether it’s honest.
This is where people sometimes get confused: “by the heart” can sound like permission to ignore thinking, as if feelings automatically equal truth. These words don’t say that. The phrase “not only” keeps reason in the room, and “also” keeps the heart from being treated as a childish interruption. The point is that some truths are too whole to be reached by argument alone. You can prove a point and still betray yourself. You can build a perfect case and still miss what matters.
I like this quote because it refuses to shame either side of you.
At the same time, it doesn’t fully hold in every moment. Sometimes your heart is noisy, swollen with yesterday, and it points in three directions at once. In those hours, “truth” can feel less like a clear destination and more like something you approach slowly.
Still, the invitation is gentle and demanding: let reason do its careful work, and let your heart tell you what your careful work is for. When both are listened to, truth stops being a trophy you win in debate and becomes something you can live with. Something you can stand inside without flinching.
The Setting Behind the Quote
Blaise Pascal is often associated with the tension between clear-minded reasoning and the limits of what reasoning can settle. These words fit a world where philosophy, mathematics, theology, and everyday moral life were not kept in separate rooms. People wrestled publicly with what could be proven, what could be defended, and what had to be chosen without perfect certainty.
In that kind of environment, “reason” carries real prestige. It is the tool that builds systems, wins arguments, and produces confidence. But it can also become a kind of pride, the assumption that anything that cannot be neatly demonstrated must not be real. A saying like this pushes back gently. It suggests that human knowing is larger than formal proof, and that some forms of recognition happen through lived experience, conscience, and inward honesty.
The quote also makes sense as a response to inner life itself. Even if your logic is strong, you still face questions that involve love, loyalty, regret, hope, and faith. In those places, you do not stop thinking, but you also cannot reduce everything to a tidy chain of reasons. Whether this exact phrasing is always traced with perfect certainty in popular retellings, its staying power comes from how familiar the problem is: you can think your way forward and still need your heart to tell you what forward means.
About Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal, a thinker often linked with both rigorous reasoning and spiritual reflection, is remembered for taking the mind seriously while also noticing where the mind reaches its edge.
He is widely associated with a style of thought that does not treat humans as brains on legs. In his outlook, people are complex: capable of sharp analysis, and yet moved by longing, fear, love, and a desire for meaning. That blend makes his voice feel close to real life. You are not asked to become less rational in order to become more human.
This connection helps the quote land with more force. When Pascal points to knowing “by reason” and “by the heart,” he is not decorating truth with sentiment. He is describing the way you actually navigate the world when the stakes are personal. You test ideas, you weigh evidence, you look for coherence, and you also sense when something is worthy, when it is false, when it is hollow.
Remembering Pascal in this way can make you less divided inside. You do not have to choose between being thoughtful and being sincere. You can let your reasoning be disciplined, and let your heart be brave enough to recognize what your reasoning alone cannot finish.
