Moliere Quotes

Things are only worth what you make them worth.

To live without loving is not really to live.

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

No, you shall be, my faith! Tartuffified.

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

Cover that bosom that I must not see: souls are wounded by such things.

Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.

One must eat to live and not live to eat.

We live under a prince who is an enemy to fraud, a prince whose eyes penetrate into the heart, and whom all the art of impostors can't deceive.

My hate is general, I detest all men;
Some because they are wicked and do evil,
Others because they tolerate the wicked,
Refusing them the active vigorous scorn
Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.

It is a long road from conception to completion.

The road is a long one from the projection of a thing to its accomplishment.

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

The road is long fro the project to its completion.

I might, by chance, write something just as shoddy;
But then I wouldn't show it to everybody.

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

In society one needs a flexible virtue; too much goodness can be blamable.

I live on good soup, not on fine words.

To marry a fool is to be no fool.

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

Perfect good sense shuns all extremity, content to couple wisdom with sobriety.

Everyone has a right to his own course of action.

There are pretenders to piety as well as to courage.

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

Great is the fortune of he who possesses a good bottle, a good book, and a good friend.

We are easily duped by those we love.

They [zealots] would have everybody be as blind as themselves: to them, to be clear-sighted is libertinism.

One is easily fooled by that which one loves.

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

The defects of human nature afford us opportunities of exercising our philosophy, the best employment of our virtues. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what use would our virtues be?

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

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

With a smile we should instruct our youth ...

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

Consistency is only suitable for ridicule.

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

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

Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.

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

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.

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

All extremes does perfect reason flee, And wishes to be wise quite soberly.

Good Heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it.

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

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

One cannot but mistrust a prospect of felicity: one must enjoy it before one can believe in it.

It is madness beyond compare To try to reform the world.

People don't mind being mean; but they never want to be ridiculous.

Good sense avoids all extremes, and requires us to be soberly rational. This unbending and virtuous stiffness of ancient times shocks too much the ordinary customs of our own; it requires too great perfection from us mortals; we must yield to the times without being too stubborn; it is the height of folly to busy ourselves in correcting the world.

All right, then: I'm deluded and I'm blind. CLITANDRE

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

The world will not alter for all your meddling.

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

When there is enough to eat for eight, there is plenty for ten.

A lover tries to stand in well with the pet dog of the house.

People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.

I marvel at your power to be mistaken.

Perfect reason avoids all extremes.

A woman always has her revenge ready.

Men often marry in hasty recklessness and repent afterward all their lives.

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

There's a sort of decency among the dead, a remarkable discretion: you never find them making any complaint against the doctor who killed them!

Books and marriage go ill together.

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

It is the public scandal that offends; to sin in secret is no sin at all.

Reason is not what decides love.

No one is safe from slander. The best way is to pay no attention to it, but live in innocence and let the world talk.

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

But reason does not govern love.

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

There's nothing people can't contrive to praise or condemn and find justification for doing so, according to their age and their inclinations.

Betrayed and wronged in everything,
I'll flee this bitter world where vice is king,
And seek some spot unpeopled and apart
Where I'll be free to have an honest heart.

Assassination's the fastest way.

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

It's true Heaven forbids some pleasures, but a compromise can usually be found.

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?

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

No matter what everybody says, ultimately these things can harm us only by the way we react to them.

The great ambition of women is to inspire love.

Deceived on all sides, overwhelmed with injustice, I will fly from an abyss where vice is triumphant, and seek out some small secluded nook on earth, where on may enjoy the freedom of being an honest man.

Don't appear so scholarly, pray. Humanize your talk, and speak to be understood.

People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.

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

The public scandal is what constitutes the offence: sins sinned in secret are no sins at all.

The ancients, sir, are the ancients, and we are the people of today.

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

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

I assure you, an educated fool is more foolish than an uneducated one.

Esteem must be founded on preference: to hold everyone in high esteem is to esteem nothing.

All is wholesome in the absence of excess.

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

People spend most of their lives worrying about things that never happen.

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

We should look long and carefully at ourselves before we pass judgement on others.

Music and dance are all you need.

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

Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.

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

Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.

Better to be married than dead!