These short "Nutshell" books do not pretend to be comprehensive but to give you some of the really essential information about various key figures. I thought they did a reasonable job on Pascal. I must have read some of his Pensees before but I can't remember where or when. I do remember a school friend talking about "Pascal's pyramid"...and I was terribly impressed because I knew nothing about Pascal then nor about his pyramid. (I still don't totally recall his pyramid...I think it kind of works like a number filter). The current book has a useful biography at the start and it does emphasise the inherent contradiction between this deeply religious person and his secular pursuits of science and mathematics.
There is a fair balance here between his religious writing and his thoughts in general about life and philosophy.
I'm not convinced about his wager however. It relies on christian doctrine (about the afterlife) and a particular interpretation of Christian doctrine. It also assumes that we can actually change our beliefs.....So, all our evidence and intellect might be saying that Jesus Christ was just a man (not God) and when we die that's it...dust to dust. But somehow we are supposed to convince our own brains that we actually believe some other story about salvation. I'm not convinced that our beliefs are all that plastic that we can change them at will. We might SAY that but do we truly believe it? And what good is the wager to, say, a buddhist? It really relies on Pascal's catholic doctrines being right. (And maybe he was really on stronger ground with his mathematics).
I didn't realise that he never really got around to editing his Pensees properly...and what we have is a series of broad sheets with a lot of bon mots and thoughts of the moment jotted down. What we have was put together by some of his friends after his death. One can take issue with just about any of his bot mots...such as p39: "Many things that are certain are contradicted. many things that are false pass without contradiction. Contradiction is no more an indication of falsehoods, than a lack of it is an indication of truth". My take on this is that if something is certain and contradictory example can be found ("all swans are white" kind of certainty.....then it is no longer certain ...in fact it is false. And so on.
But he clearly was a gifted mathematician.
Interesting that he tried to be both a religious savant and an mathematician. (Many people thought he did both well. I don't). ( )