As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEModesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
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 -
There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Our sun enlightens the planets that belong to him; why may not every fixed star also have planets to which they give light?
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
It is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
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 FONTENELLE -
A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
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 -
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
People almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
They will have the World to be in Large, what a Watch is in Small; which is very regular, and depends only upon the just disposing of the several Parts of the Movement.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE