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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEA work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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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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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
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As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
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A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
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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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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.
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Women react differently: a French woman who sees herself betrayed by her husband will kill his mistress; an Italian will kill her husband; a Spaniard will kill both; and a German will kill herself.
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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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I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
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In vain we shall penetrate more and more deeply the secrets of the structure of the human body, we shall not dupe nature; we shall die as usual.
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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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Our sun enlightens the planets that belong to him; why may not every fixed star also have planets to which they give light?
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Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE