67 Quotes by Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

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

Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.

Praising an honest person who doesn't deserve it, always wounds them.

What is conceived well is expressed clearly.

Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.

Whatever we well understand we express clearly, and words flow with ease.

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

With poverty everything becomes frightful.

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.