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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
Lawyer
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Paris
France
Boileau
Nicolas Boileau
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Influence
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Heaven
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Parnassus
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More quotes by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: But with poverty everything becomes frightful.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
If your descent is from heroic sires, Show in your life a remnant of their fires.
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
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
Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.
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
He [Moliere] pleases all the world, but cannot please himself.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Gold lends a touch of beauty even to the ugly.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.
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
No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Ignorance is always ready to admire itself. Procure yourself critical friends.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Of every four words I write, I strike out three.
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
Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
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
The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
