Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

- Jean-Henri Fabre

History records the names of royal bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat.

- Jean-Henri Fabre

All failed lovers rewrite the script, as if one sexual detail or another might have tipped the balance of pain into destiny, either tragic or miracul…

- Jean-Henri Fabre

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they cannot think of preserving the memory of the past.

- Jean-Henri Fabre

Let us turn elsewhere, to the wasps and bees, who unquestionably come first in the laying up of a heritage for their offspring.

- Jean-Henri Fabre

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at …

- Jean-Henri Fabre

History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive. It knows the names of the …

- Jean-Henri Fabre

In many cases, ignorance is a good thing : the mind retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along roads that lead nowhither, suggeste…

- Jean-Henri Fabre

If there is one vegetable which is God-given, it is the haricot bean.

- Jean-Henri Fabre