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The Pensées were not a book. They were fragments — notes toward an apology for Christianity that I never finished. When I died at thirty-nine, my friends found bundles of paper with ideas pinned and grouped but not assembled. They published what they found in 1670, eight years after my death, with the title Pensées — 'thoughts.'

The most famous fragment is the Wager. If God exists and you believe, infinite gain. If God exists and you do not believe, infinite loss. If God does not exist, you lose little by believing. The rational gambler bets on God.

This argument has been misunderstood. I was not claiming to prove God's existence. I was addressing the person who says 'I cannot believe.' My answer: you are not required to feel the thing immediately. Behave as if you believe, perform the religious acts, follow the practices. The feeling tends to follow the action. The wager is a therapy, not a proof.

Whether the therapy works depends on the person. I know it worked for me, on the night of 23 November 1654, between ten-thirty and twelve-thirty, which I described in a note I sewed into my coat and carried against my body for the rest of my life.