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-DespreauxGold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness: But with poverty everything becomes frightful.
Nicolas Boileau-DespreauxOf 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