Top 40 Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Whate’er is well conceived is clearly said, And the words to say it flow with ease.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

2. “Nothing is really beautiful but truth, and truth alone is lovely.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

3. “Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

4. “Bring your work back to the workshop twenty times. Polish it continuously, and polish it again.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

5. “Often the fear on one evil leads us into a worse.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

6. “What is conceived well is expressed clearly.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

7. “A fool can always find a greater fool who admires him.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

8. “Sometimes a fool makes a good suggestion.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

9. “Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

10. “Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

11. “Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

12. “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

13. “But satire, ever moral, ever new, Delights the reader and instructs him, too. She, if good sense refine her sterling page, Oft shakes some rooted folly of the age.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

14. “Ignorance is always ready to admire itself. Procure yourself critical friends.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

15. “All men are fools, and with every effort they differ only in the degree.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

16. “Of all the animals which fly in the air, walk on the land, or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan to Rome, the most foolish animal in my opinion is man.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

17. “Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

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

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

19. “Of every four words I write, I strike out three.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

20. “Nothing but truth is lovely, nothing fair.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

21. “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.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

22. “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

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

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

24. “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

25. “Gold lends a touch of beauty even to the ugly.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

26. “Nature always springs to the surface and manages to show what she is. It is vain to stop or try to drive her back. She breaks through every obstacle, pushes forward, and at last makes for herself a way.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

27. “Praising an honest person who doesn’t deserve it, always wounds them.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

28. “Happy who in his verse can gently steer From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

29. “With poverty everything becomes frightful.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

30. “Who is content with nothing possesses all things.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

31. “That which is repeated too often becomes insipid and tedious.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

32. “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

33. “He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

34. “The wisest man is generally he who thinks himself the least so.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

35. “A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

36. “When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

37. “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

38. “A burlesque word is often a powerful sermon.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

39. “The dreadful burden of having nothing to do.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

40. “A fop sometimes gives important advice.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

41. “If your descent is from heroic sires, Show in your life a remnant of their fires.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

42. “At times truth may not seem probable.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

43. “Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: but with poverty everything becomes frightful.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

44. “It is the sin which we have not committed which seems the most monstrous.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

45. “Truth has not such an urgent air.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

46. “Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

47. “Something of calumny always sticks.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

48. “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

49. “To support those of your rights authorized by Heaven, destroy everything rather than yield; that is the spirit of the Church.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux