Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux Quotes - Page 2

It is the sin which we have not committed which seems the most monstrous.

Let a single complete action, in one place and one day, keep the theatre packed to the last.

Though you be sprung in direct line from Hercules, if you show a lowborn meanness, that long succession of ancestors whom you disgrace are so many witnesses against you; and this grand display of their tarnished glory but serves to make your ignominy more evident.

A burlesque word is often a powerful sermon.

Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.

The wisest man is generally he who thinks himself the least so.

A proud bigot, who is vain enough to think that he can deceive even God by affected zeal, and throwing the veil of holiness over vices, damns all mankind by the word of his power.

Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.

Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.

Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: But with poverty everything becomes frightful.

At times truth may not seem probable. [Fr., Le vrai peut quelquefois n'etre pas vraisemblable.]

Of every four words I write, I strike out three.

Of all the creatures that creep, swim, or fly, Peopling the earth, the waters, and the sky, From Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan, I really think the greatest fool is man.

All men are fools, and with every effort they differ only in the degree.

Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.

If your descent is from heroic sires, Show in your life a remnant of their fires.

Praising an honest person who doesn't deserve it, always wounds them.

What is conceived well is expressed clearly.

Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul.

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.

Now two punctilious envoys, Thine and Mine, Embroil the earth about a fancied line; And, dwelling much on right and much on wrong, Prove how the right is chiefly with the strong.

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

Sometimes a fool makes a good suggestion.

With poverty everything becomes frightful.