It is the passions that do and undo everything.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEOur sun enlightens the planets that belong to him; why may not every fixed star also have planets to which they give light?
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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It is high time for me to depart, for at my age I now begin to see things as they really are.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
To despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Women react differently: a French woman who sees herself betrayed by her husband will kill his mistress; an Italian will kill her husband; a Spaniard will kill both; and a German will kill herself.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
The Art of Flying is but newly invented, twill improve by degrees, and in time grow perfect; then we may fly as far as the Moon.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
We must always skim over pleasures. They are like marshy lands that we must travel nimbly, hardly daring to put down our feet.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Leibniz never married; he had considered it at the age of fifty; but the person he had in mind asked for time to reflect. This gave Leibniz time to reflect, too, and so he never married.
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Ah! si l’on o” tait les chime’ res aux hommes, quel plaisir leur resterait? Oh! If man were robbed of his fantasies, what pleasure would be left him?
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
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In vain we shall penetrate more and more deeply the secrets of the structure of the human body, we shall not dupe nature; we shall die as usual.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE