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Quotation from Pensees by Blaise Pascal
“When we are well we wonder what we would do if we were ill, but when we are ill we take medicine cheerfully; the illness persuades us to do so”
Pensees, Fragment 109, Section II, trans. W. F. Trotter (1908)
Pascal, chronically ill himself, observes how illness reshapes desire and how fear comes from imagining a state we are not in.
Citation: "When we are well we wonder what we would do if we were ill, but when we are ill we take medicine cheerfully; the illness persuades us to do so" — Blaise Pascal, Pensees, Fragment 109, Section II, trans. W. F. Trotter (1908). (id pensees-q5)
Portrait: Blaise Pascal (1623-1672), unknown; a copy of the painting of François II Quesnel, which was made for Gérard Edelinck en 1691 [réf. nécessaire] ., Public domain.
