Top 58 Boileau Despreaux Quotes
#4. Hasten slowly, and without losing heart, put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
[Fr., Hatez-vous lentement; et, sans perdre courage,
Vingt fois sur le metier remettez votre ouvrage.]
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#5. A fool always finds one still more foolish to admire him.
[Fr., Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.]
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#8. Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#9. 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.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#10. In spite of every sage whom Greece can show, Unerring wisdom never dwelt below; Folly in all of every age we see, The only difference lies in the degree.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#12. To support those of your rights authorized by Heaven, destroy everything rather than yield; that is the spirit of the Church.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#15. Bring your work back to the workshop twenty times. Polish it continuously, and polish it again.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#16. Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: but with poverty everything becomes frightful.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#17. The world is full of fools; and he who would not wish to see one, must not only shut himself up alone, but must also break his looking-glass.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#37. Happy the poet who with ease can steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
[Lat., Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d'une voix legere
Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au severe.]
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#39. It is in vain a daring author thinks of attaining to the heights of Parnassus if he does not feel the secret influence of heaven and if his natal star has not formed him to be a poet.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#40. 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.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#42. 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.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#43. Nature always springs to the surface and manages to show what she is. It is vain to stop or try to drive her back. She breaks through every obstacle, pushes forward, and at last makes for herself a way.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#44. But satire, ever moral, ever new, Delights the reader and instructs him, too. She, if good sense refine her sterling page, Oft shakes some rooted folly of the age.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#52. 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.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
#55. Of all the animals which fly in the air, walk on the land, or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan to Rome, the most foolish animal in my opinion is man.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux