Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Quotes

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• Women 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.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Husband, Italian, Mistress

  57 Copy quote

• Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all. Our world is terrifying in its insignificance.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Knowledge, Science, Our World

  "Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology". Book by Mark Brake, 2012.

  30 Copy quote

• It is a great obstacle to happiness to expect too much.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Happiness, Too Much, Obstacles

  18 Copy quote

• A philosopher will not believe what he sees because he is too busy speculating about what he does not see.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Believe, Doe, Philosopher

  21 Copy quote

• It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Liberty, World, Libertarian

  8 Copy quote

• To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Happiness, Heart, Stomach

  24 Copy quote

• An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Mind, Age, Educated Mind

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Knowing, People, Done

  17 Copy quote

• 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 Words

  12 Copy quote

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

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Art, Understanding, Three

  12 Copy quote

• Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Future, Know How, Knows

  17 Copy quote

• Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Nature, Science, Natural

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Time, Math, Mind

  14 Copy quote

• 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 Fontenelle

  Land, Feet, Pleasure

  5 Copy quote

• Modesty in women has two special advantages,--it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Two, Special, Veils

  8 Copy quote

• If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Funny, Truth, Hands

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Years, Virtue, Hundred

  9 Copy quote

• Neatness is a crowning grace of womanhood.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Grace, Womanhood, Neatness

  36 Copy quote

• 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

  Math, Principles, Lovers

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Passion, Ambition, Astronomy

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• I hate war, for it spoils conversation.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Hate, War, Conversation

  5 Copy quote

• A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Heaven, Earth, Fool

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

  Death, Men, Usual

  7 Copy quote

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