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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Inspirational Mind Motivation
The Art of Flying is but newly invented, twill improve by degrees, and in time grow perfect; then we may fly as far as the Moon.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Art Degree Future Invented Moo
It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Libertarian Liberty World
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
An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Age Educated Mind
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
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
Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Natural Nature Science
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
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
I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Hundred Virtue Years
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

Running Science Self
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
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
A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Geometry Hands Math Work
There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Art Three Understanding
It is the passions that do and undo everything.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Everything Passion Undo
Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Grace Neatness Womanhood
There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Neighbor Ridicule Ridiculous
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
It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Beauty Please Tenderness
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

Ambition Astronomy Passion Poor Thing
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
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.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Math Mind Reflect Time
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 FONTENELLE

Home Memories Motivational
I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener.
BERNARD LE BOVIER DE FONTENELLE

Regret Silence World