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 FONTENELLEIt takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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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 -
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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A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
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Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all. Our world is terrifying in its insignificance.
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Les vrais philosophes sont comme les e le phants, qui en marchant ne posent jamais le second pied a’ terre que le premier ne soit bien affermi. True philosophers are like elephants, who when walking never placetheir second footontheground untilthefirst is steady.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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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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I detest war; it ruins conversation
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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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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
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A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
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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.
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It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
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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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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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If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 -
As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
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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 -
I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.
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We must always skim over pleasures. They are like marshy lands that we must travel nimbly, hardly daring to put down our feet.
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Let us be well assured of the Matter of Fact, before we trouble our selves with enquiring into the Cause. It is true, that this Method is too slow for the greatest part of Mankind, who run naturally to the Cause, and pass over the Truth of the Matter of Fact.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE