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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.

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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Math Mind Reflect Time
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
It is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

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

Art Three Understanding
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
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 FONTENELLE

Lover Math Principles
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

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

Regret Silence World
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Husband Italian Mistress Woman
Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Special Two Veils
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
I detest war; it ruins conversation
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Political Ruin War