I tell you once for all, nature is like nature, and comparisons are odious.
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Context: Micromegas loses patience with the Saturnian secretary's flowery attempts to describe nature.
Source: Chapter II: The Conversation Between Micromegas and the Inhabitant of Saturn
Besides, the punishment should not be inflicted upon them, but upon those sedentary and slothful barbarians, who, from their palaces, give orders for murdering a million of men and then solemnly…
I am now more than ever convinced that we ought to judge of nothing by its external magnitude. O God! who hast bestowed understanding upon such seemingly contemptible substances, thou canst with…
So, you see, we in a manner begin to die the very moment we are born: our existence is no more than a point, our duration an instant, and our globe an atom. Scarce do we begin to learn a little, when…
Micromegas: Why then do you quote that same Aristotle in Greek? Aristotelian philosopher: Because … it is but reasonable we should quote what we do not comprehend in a language we do not understand.
We anatomize flies, … we measure lines, we make calculations, we agree upon two or three points which we understand, and dispute upon two or three thousand that are beyond our comprehension.