Doesn Deserve Quotes by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Who lives content with little possesses everything.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

He [Moliere] pleases all the world, but cannot please himself.

— 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…

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Time flies and draws us with it. The moment in which I am speaking is already far from me.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

With poverty everything becomes frightful.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Something of calumny always sticks.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

A fop sometimes gives important advice.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Of all the animals which fly in the air, walk on the land, or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan…

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Nature always springs to the surface and manages to show what she is. It is vain to stop or try to drive her back.…

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Though you be sprung in direct line from Hercules, if you show a lowborn meanness, that long succession of ancestors whom you disgrace are…

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

A burlesque word is often a powerful sermon.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Let a single complete action, in one place and one day, keep the theatre packed to the last.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Truth has not such an urgent air.

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Happy the poet who with ease can steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe. [Lat., Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d'une…

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux