A couple of weeks ago (on June 19) I learned on X (formerly Twitter) that 401 years ago, mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was born — more info here. Probably Pascal is best known for the array of numbers called Pascal’s triangle — and that array has influenced poetry as well as mathematics.
My source of this info about Pascal was an ongoing collection of postings on X by Mathematics & Statistics St Andrews, @StA_Maths_Stats, which offers lots of historical facts about math and math people. Their June 19 posting offered this:
from Pensèes by Blaise Pascal (France, 1623-1662)
Belief is a wise wager. Granted that
faith cannot be proved, what harm
will come to you if you gamble
on its truth and it proves false?
. . . If you gain, you gain all;
if you lose,
you lose
nothing.
Wager, then, without
hesitation, that
He exists.