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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

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

Enlighted Future Light Stars
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
It is the passions that do and undo everything.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Everything Passion Undo
As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

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

Art Three Understanding
A 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 FONTENELLE

Elephants Feet Firsts
If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Funny Hands Truth
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
They will have the World to be in Large, what a Watch is in Small; which is very regular, and depends only upon the just disposing of the several Parts of the Movement.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Life Science Watches
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Dupes Secret Usual
I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Regret Silence World
Ah! 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 FONTENELLE

Aux Fantasy Hommes Men
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 feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Certain Difficulty Last Words
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
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 FONTENELLE

Knowing Pretension Speak