Top 249 Quotes & Sayings by Moliere - Page 3

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

Gold is the key, whatever else we try; and that sweet metal aids the conqueror in every case, in love as well as war.

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

Music and dance are all you need.

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

We always speak well when we manage to be understood.

The absence of the beloved, short though it may last, always lasts too long.

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

The scandal of the world is what makes the offence; it is not sinful to sin in silence.

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!

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. - Molière, The Misanthrope

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.

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

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

Innocence is not accustomed to blush.

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

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.

The impromptu reply is precisely the touchstone of the man of wit.

All the satires of the stage should be viewed without discomfort. They are public mirrors, where we are never to admit that we seeourselves; one admits to a fault when one is scandalized by its censure.

There is something inexpressibly charming in falling in love and, surely, the whole pleasure lies in the fact that love isn't lasting.

In clothes as well as speech, the man of sense Will shun all these extremes that give offense, Dress unaffectedly, and, without haste, Follow the changes in the current taste.

Malicious men may die, but malice never.

To live without loving is not really to live.

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

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.

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

Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.

Then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust. The grave's a fine and private place But none, I think, do there embrace.

There is no rampart that will hold out against malice.

The smallest errors are always the best. [Fr., Les plus courtes erreurs sont toujours les meilleures.]

The envious will die, but envy never.

That must be fine, for I don't understand a word.

All right-minded people adore it; and anyone who is able to live without it is unworthy to draw breathe

With a smile we should instruct our youth.

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

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.

Innocence is not accustomed to blush. [Fr., L'innocence a rougir n'est point accoutumee.]

One is easily fooled by that which one loves.

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

Stay awhile that we may make an end the sooner.

We ought always to conform to the manners of the greater number, and so behave as not to draw attention to ourselves. Excess either way shocks, and every man truly wise ought to attend to this in his dress as well as language, never to be affected in anything and follow without being in too great haste the changes of fashion.

Its as if you think you'd never find Reason and the Sacred intertwined

How strange it is to see with how much passion People see things only in their own fashion!

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

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

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.

Wives rarely fuss about their beauty To guarantee their mate's affection.

All is wholesome in the absence of excess.

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

Deference and intimacy live far apart.

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

Malicious tongues spread their poison abroad and nothing here below is proof against them.

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.

The only people who can be excused for letting a bad book loose on the world are the poor devils who have to write for a living.

Everyone has a right to his own course of action.

It's an odd job, making decent people laugh.

Time has nothing to do with the matter.

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

...all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.

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