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Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Age: 75 †
Born: 1636
Born: January 1
Died: 1711
Died: January 1
Historian
Lawyer
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Paris
France
Boileau
Nicolas Boileau
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Foolishly
Excel
Rhyme
Reason
More quotes by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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
Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: But with poverty everything becomes frightful.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Everything that poverty touches becomes frightful.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Often the fear on one evil leads us into a worse.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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
Time flies and draws us with it. The moment in which I am speaking is already far from me.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Gold lends a touch of beauty even to the ugly.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Nothing but truth is lovely, nothing fair.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Truth has not such an urgent air.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
A burlesque word is often a powerful sermon.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
What is conceived well is expressed clearly.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Ignorance is always ready to admire itself. Procure yourself critical friends.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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
However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
