I would never have attributed that quote to Pascal as he mostly is depicted as quite judgmental. Or perhaps he thought he only needed to forgive himself?

Well, after enlightenment you clearly know that you need to chop wood and carry water on your own volition. Ok, technically very likely not for yourself, but still. "You do it for yourself" is the same lie we tell children when they need to go to school after all.

Similarly, in Ted Chiang's story of a rivalry between two super-intelligences, the way that one ultimately prevails is by challenging the other to do just this. The idea is that the path to understanding anything is necessarily through developing the ability to forgive, (which is the seed and the foundation for many religions) is at the same time ridiculously difficult, yet within the grasp of literally every person in the world. It's a surprisingly deep insight.

Do you remember which story? The other comment here links to a good story, but it seems to have nothing to do with forgiveness.

But has everything to do with understanding. :)