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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

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
Mathematicians are like lovers. Grant a mathematician the least principle, and he will draw from it a consequence which you must also grant him, and from this consequence another.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Lover Math Principles
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

Carefully Hands Open Thinking
Modesty in women has two special advantages,–it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Special Two Veils
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Death Men Succeed Usual
Behold 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 FONTENELLE

Knowledge Nothing Science World
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
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
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
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

Husband Italian Mistress Woman
A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Earth Fool Heaven
I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Conversation Hate War
I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Certain Difficulty Last Words
Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Grace Neatness Womanhood
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
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

Age Last Time Words