Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Fools, Foolishness
When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Envy
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a landing-place; we can nevermore re-enter when we are once outside of it.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Honor
Of every four words I write, I strike out three.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
The wisest man is generally he who thinks himself the least so.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Wisdom
A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Silence is the understanding of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Silence
Every fool finds a greater one to admire them.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Fools, Admiration, Foolishness
There is but one road to lead us to God—humility; all other ways would only lead astray, even were they fenced in with all virtues.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Humility
Hasten slowly, and without losing heart put your work twenty times upon the anvil.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Perseverance
Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Blessings, Appreciation, Gratitude
Trouble rides behind and gallops with him.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Trouble
However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Fools, Foolishness
Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Reason
Brimful of learning, see the pedant stride, bristling with horrid Greek, and puffed with pride!—A thousand authors he in vain has read, and with their maxims stuffed his empty head; and thinks that without Aristotle’s rules, reason is blind, and common sense a fool!
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Praise
How often the fear of one evil leads into a worse.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Fear, Anxiety
The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Wisdom
Praising an honest person who doesn’t deserve it, always wounds them.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Praise
What is conceived well is expressed clearly.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Simplicity
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.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Foolishness, Fools
If your descent is from heroic sires, show in your life a remnant of their fires.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Ancestors, Ancestry
A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Eating
No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand French Writer, Statesman
- Jean le Rond d’Alembert French Mathematician
- Roland Barthes French Literary Theorist
- Jean Racine French Dramatist
- Alfred de Musset French Poet, Playwright
- Pierre de Marivaux French Dramatist, Author
- Jean de La Bruyere French Author
- Antoine Arnauld French Theologian
- Rene Descartes French Mathematician, Philosopher
- Moliere French Playwright
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