Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle 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 FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleBernard le Bovier de Fontenelle