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 FontenelleWe 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 FontenellePeople almost always do great things without knowing how to do them, and are quite surprised to have done them.
Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleNothing 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