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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLETo despise theory is to have the excessively vain pretension to do without knowing what one does, and to speak without knowing what one says.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
-
-
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 -
If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
It is high time for me to depart, for at my age I now begin to see things as they really are.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
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 -
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 -
It is the passions that do and undo everything.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
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 -
I detest war; it ruins conversation
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE