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.
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?
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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Leibniz 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.
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A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
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It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
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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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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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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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Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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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 -
It is the passions that do and undo everything.
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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.
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A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.
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Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
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I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
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To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE