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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEAh! 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?
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLELeibniz 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 FONTENELLENature 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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEBehold 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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEIt is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEThere are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEA philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEA true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEIt is the passions that do and undo everything.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEIt takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEHardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEWe 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 FONTENELLEI detest war; it ruins conversation
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEThe 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 FONTENELLE