A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.
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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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
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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.
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To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.
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A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.
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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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People almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.
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A philosopher will not believe what he sees because he is too busy speculating about what he does not see.
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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.
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Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
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Mathematicians are like lovers. Grant a mathematician the least principle, and he will draw from it a consequence which you must also grant him, and from this consequence another.
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A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
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Nature intends that, at fixed periods, men should succeed each other by the instrumentality of death. We shall never outwit Nature; we shall die as usual.
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If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
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I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue.
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Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE