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Quotes from Satires — Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

1636–1711 France

← All quotes by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

12 quotes

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

Satires (1716)

Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul.

Satires (1716)

He (Molière) pleases all the world, but cannot please himself.

Satires (1716)

The wisest man is he who is certain he is not.

Satires (1716)

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.

Satires (1716)

Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness:
But with poverty everything becomes frightful.

Satires (1716)

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

Satires (1716)

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.

Satires (1716)

I can call nothing by name if that is not his name. I call a cat a cat, and Rollet a rogue.

Satires (1716)

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.

Satires (1716)

Greatest fools are oft most satisfied.

Satires (1716)

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.

Satires (1716)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.