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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLEWomen 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.
More Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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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!
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
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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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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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
I detest war; it ruins conversation
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE -
If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it.
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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?
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A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.
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Our sun enlightens the planets that belong to him; why may not every fixed star also have planets to which they give light?
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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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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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As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
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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