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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
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Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Age: 75 †
Born: 1636
Born: January 1
Died: 1711
Died: January 1
Historian
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Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Paris
France
Boileau
Nicolas Boileau
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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More quotes by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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
Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
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
The dreadful burden of having nothing to do.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Often the fear on one evil leads us into a worse.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
He [Moliere] pleases all the world, but cannot please himself.
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
Everything that poverty touches becomes frightful.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
A burlesque word is often a powerful sermon.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
What is conceived well is expressed clearly.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
It is the sin which we have not committed which seems the most monstrous.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach once we have left it, we can never return.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Sometimes a fool makes a good suggestion.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
