grasping the circumference

"we naturally think ourselves far more capable of reaching the center than of grasping the circumference, for the visible expanse of the world is visibly greater than we are; but, since we are greater than small things, we believe that we are more capable of possessing them; yet quite as great capacity is needed to attain the Nothing as the All; it must be infinite for both, and he, methinks, who had grasped final principles could also manage to reach the infinite. the one depends on the other, and the one leads to the other. these extremes meet and combine by the very reason of their distance apart..."

pascal's pense'es, translation h.f. stewart, 1950