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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.

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

Knowing Pretension Speak
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

Geometry Hands Math Work
It is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Happiness Obstacles
A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Earth Fool Heaven
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

Elephants Feet Firsts
I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Hundred Virtue Years
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

Art Degree Future Invented Moo
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

Feet Land Pleasure
Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Special Two Veils
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

Inspirational Mind Motivation
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

Aux Fantasy Hommes Men
Nothing can be more destructive to ambition, and the passion for conquest, than the true system of astronomy. What a poor thing is even the whole globe in comparison of the infinite extent of nature!
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Ambition Astronomy Passion Poor Thing
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

Age Last Time Words
I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Conversation Hate War
If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Carefully Hands Open Thinking
Truth comes home to the mind so naturally, that when we learn it for the first time, it seems as though we did no more than recall it to our memory.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

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