A cracked pale mask rests amid loose purple ribbons and small fragments on muted mauve ground.

Original artwork, not a still

Pensées

Blaise Pascal

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Pascal proposes a paradox: because irrationality runs through nearly everyone, refusing to share in that common madness would itself count as a stranger, more isolating form of madness, turning the usual definitions of sanity and insanity inside out.

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