Molière quotes - page 4

Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same. (Molière)
People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.
Molière
Don't appear so scholarly, pray. Humanize your talk, and speak to be understood.
Molière
Books and marriage go ill together.
Molière
As the purpose of comedy is to correct the vices of men, I see no reason why anyone should be exempt.
Molière
I have the fault of being a little more sincere than is proper.
Molière
He who follows his lessons tastes a profound peace, and looks upon everybody as a bunch of manure.
Molière
Perfect reason flees all extremity, and leads one to be wise with sobriety.
Molière
Oh, how fine it is to know a thing or two.
Molière
I want to be distinguished from the rest; to tell the truth, a friend to all mankind is not a friend for me.
Molière
It is a strange enterprise to make respectable people laugh. (Molière)
Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.
Molière
Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.
Molière
To pull the chestnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw.
Molière
We have changed all that.
Molière
Ah that I- You would have it so, you would have it so; George Dandin, you would have it so! This suits you very nicely, and you are served right; you have precisely what you deserve.
Molière
What the devil was he doing in that galley?
Molière
Why Opium produces sleep: ... Because there is in it a dormitive power.
Molière
If the purpose of comedy be to chastise human weaknesses I see no reason why any class of people should be exempt. This particular failing is one of the most damaging of all in its public consequences and we have seen that the theatre is a great medium of correction. The finest passages of a serious moral treatise are all too often less effective than those of a satire and for the majority of people there is no better form of reproof than depicting their faults to them: 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.
Molière
In your face, my brother, she is laughing at you.
Molière
On some preference esteem is based; To esteem everything is to esteem nothing. (Molière)
Tell me to whom you are addressing yourself when you say that. I am addressing myself-I am addressing myself to my cap.
Molière
The beautiful eyes of my cash-box.
Molière
You are speaking before a man to whom all Naples is known.
Molière
Let's swear, my beauty, An eternal ardor.
Molière