Moliere
Moliere
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Among Molière's best known works are The Misanthrope, The School for Wives, Tartuffe, The Miser, The Imaginary Invalid, and The Bourgeois Gentleman...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth15 January 1622
CountryFrance
writing poetry criticism
One can be well-bred and write bad poetry
writing fine
That must be fine, for I don't understand a word.
writing men honorable-man
Anyone may be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.
writing might chance
I might, by chance, write something just as shoddy; But then I wouldn't show it to everybody.
book reading writing
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.
value
Things only have the value that we give them
condemning examine human-nature oneself others thinking time
One should examine oneself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others
love shows pure
The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.
people wicked way
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.
mirrors faults satire
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.
bears moral satire
One easily bears moral reproof, but never mockery.
hatred humanity cost
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.
men wicked aristocracy
What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man.
age prudes twenties
Age brings about everything; but it is not the time, Madam, as we know, to be a prude at twenty.