Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes
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It is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.
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An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
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Modesty in women has two special advantages,--it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
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To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.
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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.
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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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A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.
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Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
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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.
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A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise.
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Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the cbarm.
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I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue.
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It is high time for me to depart, for at my age I now begin to see things as they really are.
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I hate war, for it spoils conversation.
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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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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.
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If I held all the thoughts of the world in my hand, I would be careful not to open it.
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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!
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A philosopher will not believe what he sees because he is too busy speculating about what he does not see.
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There are three things I have loved but never understood. Art, music and women.
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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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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.
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I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
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It is the passions that do and undo everything.
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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.
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Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
- Born: February 11, 1657
- Died: January 9, 1757
- Occupation: Author
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