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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Selves
Truth
Greatest
Assured
Part
Trouble
Naturally
Wells
Causes
Well
Fact
Slow
Matter
Science
Pass
Self
Running
Method
Facts
Mankind
Enquiring
True
Cause

More quotes by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

Image
Modesty in women has two special advantages,--it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
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
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I feel nothing, apart from a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
It is the passions that do and undo everything.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
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 Fontenelle
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
Image
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
Image
It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
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
Image
Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
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
Image
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
Image
As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Image
Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle