Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL

French Comic Playwright, Dramatist and Actor, considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature

"The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit."

"The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon who gives dinner."

"The world will not alter for all your meddling."

"The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair."

"Then we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose."

"There are pretenders to piety as well as to courage."

"There is no praise to bear the sort that you put in your pocket."

"There is no rampart that will hold out against malice."

"There is no secret of the heart which our actions do not disclose."

"There is something inexpressibly charming in falling in love and, surely, the whole pleasure lies in the fact that love isn't lasting"

"There's no praise to beat the sort you can put in your pocket."

"There's nothing like tobacco; it is the passion of all decent men-a man who lives without tobacco does not deserve to live."

"Things only have the value that we give them"

"Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors."

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

"To esteem everything is to esteem nothing."

"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."

"To marry a fool is to be no fool."

"To pull the chestnuts out of the fire with the cat's paw."

"To speak prose without knowing it."

"Too great haste leads us to error."

"Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit."

"True, Heaven prohibits certain pleasures; but one can generally negotiate a compromise."

"Unbroken happiness is a bore: it should have ups and downs."

"Virtue in this world should be malleable."

"Virtue is the first title of nobility."

"We always speak well when we manage to be understood."

"We are all mortal, and each one is for himself."

"We are easily fooled by that which we love."

"We die only once, and for such a long time."

"We have changed all that."

"We often marry in despair, so that we repent of it all our life after."

"We ought always to conform to the manners of the greater number, and so behave as not to draw attention to ourselves. Excess either way shocks, and every man truly wise ought to attend to this in his dress as well as language, never to be affected in anything and follow without being in too great haste the changes of fashion."

"What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man."

"What the devil was he doing in that galley?"

"When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose."

"When you hear knows we're always right."

"Where does virtue go to lodge?"

"Why Opium produces sleep: ... Because there is in it a dormitive power."

"Writing is a little bit like prostitution. First you do it for love. Then you do it for a Few friends. Then you do it for money."

"Yes, as I have already told you, here they hang a man first and try him afterwards."

"You are a fool in three letters, my son."

"You are going to be greatly edified; they'll tell you in Latin that your daughter is sick."

"You are my peace, my solace, my salvation."

"You are speaking before a man to whom all Naples is known."

"You have wished it so, you have wished it so, George Dandin, you have wished it so."

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

"You see him laboring to produce bons mots."

"You speak before a man to whom all Naples is known."