On the Anxiety of Existence

 A New fundamental Mood

. . . . The dynamic of existence is determined, for Pascal, by the impossibility of a state of complete quiet or rest (repos). "Nothing is as unbearable for man as to be completely at rest, without passion, without business, without distraction, without application to something." In such a state of rest man becomes aware of "his nothingness, his foresakenness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his impotence, his emptiness."