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 FONTENELLEI hate war, for it spoils conversation.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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Nature 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.
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It is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.
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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!
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A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
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Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
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It is high time for me to depart, for at my age I now begin to see things as they really are.
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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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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
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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.
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If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it.
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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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An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
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There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.
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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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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.
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Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
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Les 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.
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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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If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
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I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
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It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
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I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
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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