Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622–73,) known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered the creator of modern French comedy.
Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in Paris, Molière declined to join his father’s carpet and upholstery business as a young man. He fled with an actress and her family’s wandering theater troupe. They toured all around the provinces with great success, but kept away from Paris; Molière had been previously imprisoned there for large debts for which he became responsible. When they did return to Paris eventually, Molière tried to win the king’s favor by presenting a tragedy, but Molière received bad reviews for his acting.
Molière found success only when he performed his short farce, Love Is the Doctor. King Louis XIV became a champion of Molière’s work, and even performed as a ballet dancer in one of them.
Molière’s popular plays include the original stage comedies The School for Wives (1662,) Don Juan (1665,) Tartuffe (1666,) The Misanthrope (1666,) The Miser (1668,) The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670,) and The Imaginary Invalid (1673.)
Molière’s works gained widespread success with the public, even if they were criticized by conservative reviewers, the Catholic church, and medical professionals. Other playwrights and theater troupes copied his theatrical style in France and England.
The French national theater, the Comédie-Française, has been popularly known as “La Maison de Molière” (The House of Molière.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Moliere
Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors.
—Moliere
Topics: Hypocrisy
Birth is nothing where virtue is not.
—Moliere
Topics: Ancestry
It’s true Heaven forbids some pleasures, but a compromise can usually be found.
—Moliere
Topics: Pleasure
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.
—Moliere
Unbroken happiness is a bore: It should have ups and downs.
—Moliere
Topics: Happiness
A husband is a plaster that cures all the ills of girlhood.
—Moliere
Topics: Marriage
The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.
—Moliere
Topics: Candor, Flattery, Friendship
It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.
—Moliere
Topics: Doing Your Best
People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything.
—Moliere
Topics: Class, Intelligence
An erudite fool is a greater fool than an ignorant fool.
—Moliere
Topics: Fools
It is the public scandal that offends; to sin in secret is no sin at all.
—Moliere
Topics: Shame
Without knowledge, life is not more than the shadow of death.
—Moliere
Topics: Knowledge
Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.
—Moliere
Topics: Haste
The proof of true love is to be unsparing in criticism.
—Moliere
Topics: Romance
Love is often the fruit of marriage.
—Moliere
Topics: Marriage
If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.
—Moliere
Topics: Courage, Grief
To live without loving is not really to live.
—Moliere
Topics: Love
It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love.
—Moliere
Topics: Joy
I prefer an interesting vice to a virtue that bores.
—Moliere
Topics: Vice
The mind has great influence over the body, and maladies often have their origin there.
—Moliere
Topics: Health
We always speak well when we manage to be understood.
—Moliere
Topics: Communication
Consistency is only suitable for ridicule.
—Moliere
Topics: Consistency, Change
I always write a good first line, but I have trouble in writing the others.
—Moliere
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
Books and marriage go ill together.
—Moliere
Topics: Reading, Books
We should conform to the manners of the greater number, and so behave as not to draw attention to ourselves.—Excess either way shocks, and every wise man should attend to this in his dress as well as language; never be affected in anything, but follow, without being in too great haste, the changes of fashion.
—Moliere
Topics: Fashion
Every good act is charity. A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.
—Moliere
Topics: Charity
The greater the obstacle, the more glory we have in overcoming it; the difficulties with which we are met are the maids of honor which set off virtue.
—Moliere
Topics: Difficulty, Opposition, One liners, Obstacles, Adversity, Risk, Difficulties
Oh how fine it is to know a thing or two!
—Moliere
Topics: Knowledge
The impromptu reply is precisely the touchstone of the man of wit.
—Moliere
Topics: Wit
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.
—Moliere
Topics: Insults, Slander
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