black
grey
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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

The judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Differences Ordinary Watches
A philosopher will not believe what he sees because he is too busy speculating about what he does not see.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Believe Busy Philosopher
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

Enlighted Future Light Stars
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

Life Science Watches
I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Regret Silence World
It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Beauty Please Tenderness
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
There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Art Three Understanding
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Math Mind Reflect Time
I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Certain Difficulty Last Words
Since the princes take the Earth for their own, it’s fair that the philosophers reserve the sky for themselves and rule there, but they should never permit the entry of others.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Earth Philosopher Sky
Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Grace Neatness Womanhood
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
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

Done Knowing People
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
There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Neighbor Ridicule Ridiculous