Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes - Page 2

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.

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.

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.

I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.

I detest war; it ruins conversation

It is the passions that do and undo everything.

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.

It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.

If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it.

There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch.

Our sun enlightens the planets that belong to him; why may not every fixed star also have planets to which they give light?

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.

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?

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.

L'univers?je l'en estime plus depuis que je sais qu'il ressemble a' une montre; il est surprenant que l'ordre de la nature, tout admirable qu'il est, ne roule que sur des choses si simples. I have come to esteem the universe more now that I know it resembles a watch; it is surprising that the order of nature, as admirable as it is, only runs on such simple things.

As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.

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.

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.

A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.

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.

A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.

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.