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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist. — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all.… — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
Truth comes home to the mind so naturally, that when we learn it for the first time, it seems as though we did no… — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
A man finds no sweeter voice in all the world than that which chants his praise. — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
In vain we shall penetrate more and more deeply the secrets of the structure of the human body, we shall not dupe nature; we… — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future. — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
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… — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property. — Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
