Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, often known simply as Boileau, was a French poet and critic...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth1 November 1636
CountryFrance
art writing limits
He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.
friendship praise advise
Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.
honest praise persons
Praising an honest person who doesn't deserve it, always wounds them.
simplicity wells
What is conceived well is expressed clearly.
reason rhyme
Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.
understanding ease flow
Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.
beach islands honor
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.
poverty ending-poverty
With poverty everything becomes frightful.
long lines ancestry
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.
writing limits able
No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
style age way
Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.
fool fools-and-wise satisfied
Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.
break-up glasses fools-day
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.
life fire ancestry
If your descent is from heroic sires, Show in your life a remnant of their fires.