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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.

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

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Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
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More quotes by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

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Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
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An educated mind is, as it were, composed of all the minds of preceding ages.
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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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It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
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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.
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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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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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People almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.
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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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Hardly anyone knows how much is gained by ignoring the future.
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It is the passions that do and undo everything.
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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.
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As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
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We must always skim over pleasures. They are like marshy lands that we must travel nimbly, hardly daring to put down our feet.
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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 philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools
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Modesty in women has two special advantages,--it enhances beauty and veils uncomeliness.
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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.
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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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