Moliere Quotes

#1. All which is not prose is verse; and all which is not verse is prose.

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#2. Why put yourself in charge of Heaven's cause?
Does Heaven need our help to enforce its laws?

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#3. People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.

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#4. We ought to punish pitilessly that shameful pretence of friendly intercourse. I like a man to be a man, and to show on all occasions the bottom of his heart in his discourse. Let that be the thing to speak, and never let our feelings be beneath vain compliments

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#5. People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.

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#6. If Claret is the king of natural wines, Burgundy is the queen.

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#7. Malicious men may die, but malice never.

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#8. There is nothing so necessary for men as dancing.

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#9. Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.

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#10. Each day my reason tells me so; But reason doesn't rule in love, you know.

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#11. There is no praise to bear the sort that you put in your pocket.

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#12. What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and devotion? Would you give them the same names, and respect the mask as you do the face? Would you equate artifice and sincerity? Confound appearance with truth? Regard the phantom as the very person? Value counterfeit as cash?

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#13. Everything that's prose isn't verse and everything that isn't verse is prose. Now you see what it is to be a scholar!

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#14. The most effective way of attacking vice is to expose it to public ridicule. People can put up with rebukes but they cannot bear being laughed at: they are prepared to be wicked but they dislike appearing ridiculous.

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#15. Books and marriage go ill together.

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#16. To create a public scandal is what's wicked; to sin in private is not a sin.

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#17. There's nothing quite like tobacco: it's the passion of decent folk, and whoever lives without tobacco doesn't deserve to live.

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#18. My claims were justified in all men's sight; I put my trust in equity and right; Yet, to my horror and the world's disgrace, Justice is mocked, and I have lost my case! A scoundrel whose dishonesty is notorious Emerges from another lie victorious!

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#19. Perfect reason flees all extremity, and leads one to be wise with sobriety.

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#20. The heart can do anything.

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#21. We are all mortals, and each is for himself.

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#22. Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases.

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#23. We must take the good with the bad; For the good when it's good, is so very good That the bad when it's bad can't be bad!

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#24. I believe that two and two are four and that four and four are eight.

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#25. I am, I fear, Inclined to be unfashionably sincere. ORONTE

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#26. All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.

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#27. I have a heart to love all the world; and like Alexander I wish there were yet other worlds, so I could carry even further my amorous conquests.

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#28. Ah, there are no longer any children!

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#29. There is nothing I detest so much as the contortions of these great time-and-lip servers, these affable dispensers of meaningless embraces, these obliging utterers of empty words, who view every one in civilities

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#30. Your humour, madam, Gives any and everyone too easy access Into your heart. You have too many lovers Besieging you - a thing I can't endure.

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#31. Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors.

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#32. I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores.

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#33. You only die once, but you will be dead for a very long time.

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#34. He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

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#35. Words and deeds are far from being one. Much that is talked about is left undone.

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#36. One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.

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#37. It is good food and not fine words that keeps me alive.

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#38. To find yourself jilted is a blow to your pride. Do your best to forget it and if you don't succeed, at least pretend to.

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#39. All is wholesome in the absence of excess.

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#40. Tobacco is the passion of honest men and he who lives without tobacco is not worthy of living.

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#41. Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.

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#42. Grammar, which knows how to control even kings.

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#43. Love is a great master. It teaches us to be what we never were.

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#44. The maturing process of becoming a writer is akin to that of a harlot. First you do it for love, then for a few friends, and finally only for money.

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#45. As the purpose of comedy is to correct the vices of men, I see no reason why anyone should be exempt.

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#46. Perfect reason avoids all extremes.

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#47. A good husband be the best sort of plaster for to cure a young woman's ailments.

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#48. I have the defect of being more
sincere than persons wish.

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#49. My heavens! I've been talking prose for the last forty years without knowing it.

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#50. It is fine for a woman to know a lot; but I don't want her to have this shocking desire to be learned for learnedness sake. When I ask a woman a question, I like her to pretend to ignore what she really knows.

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#51. The secret to fencing consists in two things: to give and to not receive.

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#52. Ah! how annoying that the law doesn't allow a woman to change husbands just as one does shirts.

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#53. Our minds need relaxation, and give way unless we mix with work a little play.

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#54. Outside of Paris, there is no hope for the cultured.

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#55. Oh, how fine it is to know a thing or two.

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#56. But it is not reason that governs love.

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#57. You have but to hold forth in cap and gown, and any gibberish becomes learning, all nonsense passes for sense.

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#58. Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.

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#59. I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue.

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#60. How easy love makes fools of us.

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#61. A laudation in Greek is of marvellous efficacy on the title-page of a book.

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#62. What do I believe? I believe that two and two make four, Sganarelle, and that four and four are eight.

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#63. What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man.

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#64. Things are only worth what you make them worth.

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#65. Esteem must be founded on some sort of preference. Bestow it on everybody and it ceases to have any meaning at all.

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#66. Unbroken happiness is a bore: it should have ups and downs.

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#67. When you model yourself on people, you should try to resemble their good sides.

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#68. Assassination's the fastest way.

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#69. Two wives? That exceeds the custom.

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#70. I recover my property wherever I find it.

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#71. True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise.

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#72. Show some mercy to this chair which has stretched out its arms to you for so long; please satisfy its desire to embrace you!

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#73. Gold gives to the ugliest thing a certain charming air, For that without it were else a miserable affair.

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#74. She is laughing up her sleeve at you.

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#75. The general public is easy. You don't have to answer to anyone; and as long as you follow the rules of your profession, you needn't worry about the consequences. But the problem with the powerful and rich is that when they are sick, they really want their doctors to cure them.

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#76. It is a folly second to none; to try to improve the world.

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#77. I hate all men, the ones because they are mean and vicious, and the others for being complaisant with the vicious ones.

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#78. No, you shall be, my faith! Tartuffified.

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#79. Man's greatest weakness is his love for life.

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#80. The proof of true love is to be unsparing in criticism.

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#81. Grammar, which can govern even Kings.

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#82. Here in the world, each human frailty Provides occasion for philosophy, And that is virtue's noblest exercise;

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#83. Once you have the cap and gown all you need do is open your mouth. Whatever nonsense you talk becomes wisdom and all the rubbish good sense.

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#84. You think you can marry for your own pleasure, friend?

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#85. Reason is not what decides love.

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#86. It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.

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#87. I have the fault of being a little more sincere than is proper.

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#88. Although I am a pious man, I am not the less a man.

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#89. Reasoning is the pastime of my whole household, and all this reasoning has driven out Reason.

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#90. The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

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#91. I want people to be sincere; a man of honor shouldn't speak a single word that doesn't come straight from his heart.

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#92. Anyone may be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.

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#93. Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.

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#94. The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.

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#95. Rest assured that there is nothing which wounds the heart of a noble man more deeply than the thought his honour is assailed.

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#96. He must have killed a lot of men to have made so much money.

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#97. Debts are nowadays like children begot with pleasure, but brought forth in pain.

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#98. Sharing with Jupiter is never a dishonor.

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#99. Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.

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#100. The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.

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