Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world literature. His extant works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more.

Molière Quotes

1. “Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”
— Molière

2. “It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.”
— Molière

3. “Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.”
— Molière

4. “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”
— Molière

5. “One should eat to live, not live to eat.”
— Molière

6. “The great ambition of women is to inspire love.”
— Molière

7. “Music and dance are all you need.”
— Molière

8. “Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases.”
— Molière

9. “A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.”
— Molière

10. “Without knowledge, life is no more than the shadow of death.”
— Molière

11. “We die only once, and for such a long time.”
— Molière

12. “Great is the fortune of he who possesses a good bottle, a good book, and a good friend.”
— Molière

13. “Love is a great master. It teaches us to be what we never were.”
— Molière

14. “Man’s greatest weakness is his love for life.”
— Molière

15. “People spend most of their lives worrying about things that never happen.”
— Molière

16. “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.”
— Molière

17. “You are my peace, my solace, my salvation.”
— Molière

18. “Long is the road from conception to completion.”
— Molière

19. “Every good act is charity. A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.”
— Molière

20. “Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”
— Molière

21. “It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.”
— Molière

22. “A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.”
— Molière

23. “If you make yourself understood, you’re always speaking well.”
— Molière

24. “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.”
— Molière

25. “Things are only worth what you make them worth.”
— Molière

26. “I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores.”
— Molière

27. “Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.”
— Molière

28. “He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.”
— Molière

29. “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!”
— Molière

30. “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?”
— Molière

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

32. “People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.”
— Molière

33. “Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.”
— Molière

34. “There are pretenders to piety as well as to courage.”
— Molière

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

36. “You are a fool in four letters, my son.”
— Molière

37. “One ought to look a good deal at oneself before thinking of condemning others.”
— Molière

38. “Each day my reason tells me so; But reason doesn’t rule in love, you know.”
— Molière

39. “Debts are nowadays like children begot with pleasure, but brought forth in pain.”
— Molière

40. “Love is often the fruit of marriage.”
— Molière

41. “The ancients, sir, are the ancients, and we are the people of today.”
— Molière

42. “There is something inexpressibly charming in falling in love and, surely, the whole pleasure lies in the fact that love isn’t lasting.”
— Molière

43. “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.”
— Molière

44. “With a smile we should instruct our youth…”
— Molière

45. “Books and marriage go ill together.”
— Molière

46. “Ah, there are no children nowadays.”
— Molière

47. “To inspire love is a woman’s greatest ambition, believe me. It’s the one thing woman care about and there’s no woman so proud that she does not rejoice at heart in her conquests.”
— Molière

48. “It is good food and not fine words that keeps me alive.”
— Molière

49. “Gold makes the ugly beautiful.”
— Molière

50. “To live without loving is not really to live.”
— Molière

51. “Most people die from the remedy rather than from the illness.”
— Molière

52. “I want people to be sincere; a man of honor shouldn’t speak a single word that doesn’t come straight from his heart.”
— Molière

53. “It is the public scandal that offends; to sin in secret is no sin at all.”
— Molière

54. “Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.”
— Molière

55. “It is a folly second to none; to try to improve the world.”
— Molière

56. “A woman always has her revenge ready.”
— Molière

57. “In society one needs a flexible virtue; too much goodness can be blamable.”
— Molière

58. “Malicious men may die, but malice never.”
— Molière

59. “The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.”
— Molière

60. “Doubts are more cruel than the worst of truths.”
— Molière

61. “Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.”
— Molière

62. “Words and deeds are far from being one. Much that is talked about is left undone.”
— Molière

63. “The envious will die, but envy never.”
— Molière

64. “There is no secret of the heart which our actions do not disclose.”
— Molière

65. “If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.”
— Molière

66. “People can be induced to swallow anything, provided it is sufficiently seasoned with praise.”
— Molière

67. “Nothing can be fairer, or more noble, than the holy fervor of true zeal.”
— Molière

68. “Virtue is the first title of nobility.”
— Molière

69. “Don’t appear so scholarly, pray. Humanize your talk, and speak to be understood.”
— Molière

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

71. “There is no protection against slander.”
— Molière

72. “Consistency is only suitable for ridicule.”
— Molière

73. “Show some mercy to this chair which has stretched out its arms to you for so long; please satisfy its desire to embrace you!”
— Molière

74. “The true touchstone of wit is the impromptu.”
— Molière

75. “Too great haste leads us to error.”
— Molière

76. “Without dance, a man can do nothing.”
— Molière

77. “To marry a fool is to be no fool.”
— Molière

78. “A husband is a plaster that cures all the ills of girlhood.”
— Molière

79. “The smallest errors are always the best.”
— Molière

80. “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.”
— Molière

81. “You only die once, but you will be dead for a very long time.”
— Molière

82. “The secret to fencing consists in two things: to give and to not receive.”
— Molière

83. “Good Heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it.”
— Molière

84. “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.”
— Molière

85. “The absence of the beloved, short though it may last, always lasts too long.”
— Molière

86. “The impromptu reply is precisely the touchstone of the man of wit.”
— Molière

87. “I hate all men, the ones because they are mean and vicious, and the others for being complaisant with the vicious ones.”
— Molière

88. “My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship.”
— Molière

89. “The proof of true love is to be unsparing in criticism.”
— Molière

90. “It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love.”
— Molière

91. “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

92. “The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.”
— Molière

93. “The scandal of the world is what makes the offence; it is not sinful to sin in silence.”
— Molière

94. “I believe that two and two are four and that four and four are eight.”
— Molière

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

96. “Le plus grand faible des hommes, c’est l’amour qu’ils ont de la vie.”
— Molière

97. “Folk whose own behavior is most ridiculous are always to the fore in slandering others.”
— Molière

98. “If Claret is the king of natural wines, Burgundy is the queen.”
— Molière

99. “And with his arms crossed he looks pityingly down from his spiritual height on everything that anyone says.”
— Molière

100. “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

101. “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.”
— Molière

102. “Our minds need relaxation, and give way unless we mix with work a little play.”
— Molière

103. “I feed on good soup, not beautiful language.”
— Molière

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

105. “People don’t mind being mean; but they never want to be ridiculous.”
— Molière

106. “Tobacco is the passion of honest men and he who lives without tobacco is not worthy of living.”
— Molière

107. “Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.”
— Molière

108. “No matter what Aristotle and the Philosophers say, nothing is equal to tobacco; it’s the passion of the well-bred, and he who lives without tobacco lives a life not worth living.”
— Molière

109. “I will not leave you until I have seen you hanged.”
— Molière

110. “Birth is nothing where virtue is not.”
— Molière

111. “Grammar, which knows how to control even kings.”
— Molière

112. “But it is not reason that governs love.”
— Molière

113. “Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors.”
— Molière

114. “No reason makes it right To shun accepted ways from stubborn spite; And we may better join the foolish crowd Than cling to wisdom, lonely though unbowed.”
— Molière

115. “The road is long fro the project to its completion.”
— Molière

116. “There is nothing so necessary for men as dancing.”
— Molière

117. “We always speak well when we manage to be understood.”
— Molière

118. “Sharing with Jupiter is never a dishonor.”
— Molière

119. “All the power is with the sex that wears the beard.”
— Molière

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

121. “I have the fault of being a little more sincere than is proper.”
— Molière

122. “Although I am a pious man, I am not the less a man.”
— Molière

123. “How easy love makes fools of us.”
— Molière

124. “Its as if you think you’d never find Reason and the Sacred intertwined.”
— Molière

125. “Outside of Paris, there is no hope for the cultured.”
— Molière

126. “Anyone may be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.”
— Molière

127. “Time has nothing to do with the matter.”
— Molière

128. “We should look long and carefully at ourselves before we pass judgement on others.”
— Molière

129. “There’s nothing people can’t contrive to praise or condemn and find justification for doing so, according to their age and their inclinations.”
— Molière

130. “The more powerful the obstacle, the more glory we have in overcoming it; and the difficulties with which we are met are the maids of honor which set off virtue.”
— Molière

131. “According to the saying of an ancient philosopher, one should eat to live, and not live to eat.”
— Molière

132. “I recover my property wherever I find it.”
— Molière

133. “All is wholesome in the absence of excess.”
— Molière

134. “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.”
— Molière

135. “We are easily duped by those we love.”
— Molière

136. “You have but to hold forth in cap and gown, and any gibberish becomes learning, all nonsense passes for sense.”
— Molière

137. “One easily bears moral reproof, but never mockery.”
— Molière

138. “I have the knack of easing scruples.”
— Molière

139. “I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.”
— Molière

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

141. “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.”
— Molière

142. “I might, by chance, write something just as shoddy; But then I wouldn’t show it to everybody.”
— Molière

143. “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!”
— Molière

144. “Two wives? That exceeds the custom.”
— Molière

145. “Men often marry in hasty recklessness and repent afterward all their lives.”
— Molière

146. “When there is enough to eat for eight, there is plenty for ten.”
— Molière

147. “Isn’t the greatest rule of all the rules simply to please?”
— Molièr

148. “I want to be distinguished from the rest; to tell the truth, a friend to all mankind is not a friend for me.”
— Molière

149. “Cover that bosom that I must not see: souls are wounded by such things.”
— Molière

150. “There is no fate more distressing for an artist than to have to show himself off before fools, to see his work exposed to the criticism of the vulgar and ignorant.”
— Molière

151. “Frankly, it’s good enough to lock up in a drawer.”
— Molière

152. “A lover tries to stand in well with the pet dog of the house.”
— Molière

153. “Perfect good sense shuns all extremity, content to couple wisdom with sobriety.”
— Molière

154. “He must have killed a lot of men to have made so much money.”
— Molière

155. “The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.”
— Molière

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

157. “How easily a fathers tenderness is recalled, and how quickly a son’s offenses vanish at the slightest word of repentance!”
— Molière

158. “Sometimes I feel something akin to rage At the corrupted morals of this age!”
— Molière

159. “I find medicine is the best of all trades because whether you do any good or not you still. Get your money.”
— Molière

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

161. “He who follows his lessons tastes a profound peace, and looks upon everybody as a bunch of manure.”
— Molière

162. “True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise.”
— Molière

163. “The genuine Amphitryon is the Amphitryon with whom we dine.”
— Molière

164. “Malicious tongues spread their poison abroad and nothing here below is proof against them.”
— Molière

165. “All which is not prose is verse; and all which is not verse is prose.”
— Molière

166. “It may cost me twenty thousand francs; but for twenty thousand francs, I will have the right to rail against the iniquity of humanity, and to devote to it my eternal hatred.”
— Molière

167. “Of all human foibles love of living is the most powerful.”
— Molière

168. “I maintain, in truth, That with a smile we should instruct our youth, Be very gentle when we have to blame, And not put them in fear of virtue’s name.”
— Molière

169. “Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.”
— Molière

170. “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.”
— Molière

171. “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.”
— Molière

172. “Age brings about everything; but it is not the time, Madam, as we know, to be a prude at twenty.”
— Molière

173. “You think you can marry for your own pleasure, friend?”
— Molière

174. “When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.”
— Molière

175. “Assassination’s the fastest way.”
— Molière

176. “We are all mortals, and each is for himself.”
— Molière

177. “There is no reward so delightful, no pleasure so exquisite, as having one’s work known and acclaimed by those whose applause confers honor.”
— Molière

178. “My heavens! I’ve been talking prose for the last forty years without knowing it.”
— Molière

179. “Deference and intimacy live far apart.”
— Molière

180. “Stay awhile that we may make an end the sooner.”
— Molière

181. “Frenchmen have an unlimited capacity for gallantry and indulge it on every occasion.”
— Molière

182. “That must be fine, for I don’t understand a word.”
— Molière

183. “All right-minded people adore it; and anyone who is able to live without it is unworthy to draw breathe.”
— Molière

184. “And knowing money is a root of evil, in Christian charity, he’d take away whatever things may hinder your salvation.”
— Molière

185. “A laudation in Greek is of marvellous efficacy on the title-page of a book.”
— Molière

186. “Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death.”
— Molière

187. “Perfect reason avoids all extremes.”
— Molière

188. “She is laughing up her sleeve at you.”
— Molière

189. “How strange it is to see with how much passion People see things only in their own fashion!”
— Molière

190. “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.”
— Molière

191. “Human weakness is to desire to know what one does not want to know.”
— Molière

192. “Better to be married than dead!”
— Molière

193. “Wives rarely fuss about their beauty To guarantee their mate’s affection.”
— Molière

194. “Oh, how fine it is to know a thing or two.”
— Molière

195. “People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.”
— Molière

196. “When you model yourself on people, you should try to resemble their good sides.”
— Molière

197. “The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.”
— Molière

198. “Ah! how annoying that the law doesn’t allow a woman to change husbands just as one does shirts.”
— Molière

199. “One can be well-bred and write bad poetry.”
— Molière

200. “Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.”
— Molière