NICOLAS BOILEAU-DESPREAUX

The dreadful burden of having nothing to do.

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.

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

However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him

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

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

Who lives content with little possesses everything.

Sometimes a fool makes a good suggestion.

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

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.

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

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.

Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.

Whate'er is well conceived is clearly said, And the words to say it flow with ease.

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

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

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.

A fop sometimes gives important advice.

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.

Virtue alone is the unerring sign of a noble soul.

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

A warmed-up dinner was never worth much.