Nicolas Boileau
Nicolas Boileau
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, often known simply as Boileau, was a French poet and critic...
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.
wisdom lying differences
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.
giving gold poverty
Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: but with poverty everything becomes frightful.
giving advice important
A fop sometimes gives important advice.
stars thinking heaven
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.
gold ugly
Gold lends a touch of beauty even to the ugly.
poverty poor
Everything that poverty touches becomes frightful.
work heart anvils
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.]
thinking veils holiness
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.