Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEI feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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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 -
To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.
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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?
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I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
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It is the passions that do and undo everything.
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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
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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.
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There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.
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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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If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
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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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A philosopher will not believe what he sees because he is too busy speculating about what he does not see.
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Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
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Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
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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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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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I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
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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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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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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!
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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 -
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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If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it.
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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.
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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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE