Moliere Quotes

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

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

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

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

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.

Time has nothing to do with the matter.

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

We are all mortals, and each is for himself.

Grammar, which knows how to lord it over kings, and with high hands makes them obey its laws.

In order to prove a friend to one's guests, frugality must reign in one's meals; and, according to an ancient saying, one must eat to live, not live to eat.

Birth is nothing without virtue, and we have no claim to share in the glory of our ancestors unless we endeavor to resemble them.

One can be well-bred and write bad poetry

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

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.

Ah, there are no longer any children!

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

The road is long fro the project to its completion.

Assassination's the fastest way.

I will maintain it before the whole world.

Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death.

She is laughing up her sleeve at you.

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

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

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!

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

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

Ah, there are no children nowadays.

You are a fool in four letters, my son.

If you suppress grief too much it can well redouble.

A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool.

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

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

Love is often a fruit of marriage.

It is a public scandal that gives offence and it is no sin to sin in secret.

To find oneself jilted is a blow to one's pride. One must do one's best to forget it and if one doesn't succeed at least one must pretend to.

The greater the obstacle the more glory in overcoming it.

It is not alone what we do but also what we do not do for which we are accountable.

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

I prefer an accommodation vice to an obstinate virtue.

You never see the old austerity That was the essence of civility Young people hereabouts unbridled now Just want.