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 FONTENELLELes 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.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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It is the passions that do and undo everything.
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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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Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
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It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
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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 shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
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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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People almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.
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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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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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Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
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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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A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
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I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
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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








