"Tartuffe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greater common sense, chose the via media. He was content to sacrifice something of his principles to the service of Rome—and of himself. It is not necessary to regard him as wholly disinterested in his conduct; it is unjust and absurd to regard him as a glorified Tartuffe.[152] Such a supposition is adequately refuted by his writings. It is easy for a writer at once so fluent and so brilliant to give the impression of insincerity; but the philosophical works of Seneca ring surprisingly ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... added: "Enfin, Monsieur, Dieu n'a pas besoin des choses terrestres." On my saying this he did not chuse to continue the conversation, but calling for a bottle of wine drank it all himself with the zest of a Tartuffe. I believe that he was surprised to find that an Englishman should not coincide with his sentiments, for I observe all the adherents of the ancient regime of feudality and superstition have an idea that we are anxious for the re-establishment ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... the "testamentary executor of the revolution;" and the Prince should have added the legatee; or, more justly still, as well as the EXECUTOR, he should be called the EXECUTIONER, and then his title would be complete. In Vendemiaire, the military Tartuffe, he threw aside the Revolution's natural heirs, and made her, as it were, ALTER HER WILL; on the 18th of Brumaire he strangled her, and on the 19th seized on her property, and kept it until force deprived him of it. Illustrations, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... voice loudly accused many nonjurors of requiting the hospitality of their benefactors with villany as black as that of the hypocrite depicted in the masterpiece of Moliere. Indeed, when Cibber undertook to adapt that noble comedy to the English stage, he made his Tartuffe a nonjuror: and Johnson, who cannot be supposed to have been prejudiced against the nonjurors, frankly owned that Cibber had done them no ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to promotion by consistent partisanship, and by two plays of fair merit and exceeding popularity. "The Careless Husband" even Pope had praised; "The Nonjuror," an adaptation of Moliere's "Tartuffe," was one of the most successful comedies of the period. The King had been delighted with it,—a circumstance doubtless considered by Sir Robert in selecting a rival for Savage. Cibber had likewise been the manager, time out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... figures of Alceste and Tartuffe has summarised and embodied all that we need to know of indignant honesty and the false fervour of sanctimonious animalism, so in the person of Sir Willoughby Patterne has Mr. Meredith succeeded in expressing the qualities of egoism as the ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Duchenois, who, although ugly, was certainly an excellent actress and a favourite of the public. I was so fond of the theatre that I enjoyed comedy quite as much as tragedy, and was delighted with Mademoiselle Mars, whom we saw in Tartuffe. Some years later I saw her again, when, although an old woman, she still appeared handsome and young upon the stage, and was as graceful and ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... more valuable than many volumes, J.B. Say has already remarked that there are two ways of removing the disorder introduced by hypocrisy into an honorable family; to reform Tartuffe, or sharpen the wits of Orgon. Moliere, that great painter of human life, seems constantly to have had in view the second process as ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... the Tartuffe of sentiment, Joseph, is another service to the cause of morals, which should more than atone for any dangerous embellishment of wrong that the portraiture of the younger brother may exhibit. Indeed, though both these ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... telling Orgon of his wife's illness, and the latter continually interrupts him with inquiries as to the health of Tartuffe, the question: "Et tartuffe?" repeated every few moments, affords us the distinct sensation of a spring being released. This spring Dorine delights in pushing back, each time she resumes her account of Elmire's illness. And when Scapin informs old Geronte that his son ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... we shall see the decline of Satan. Sad to tell, we shall find him pacified, turned into a good old fellow. He will be robbed and plundered, until of the two masks he wore at the Sabbath, the dirtiest is taken by Tartuffe. His spirit is still everywhere, but of his bodily self, in losing the Witch he lost all. The ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... between our thoughts and our deeds which is inevitable to our social order, and is bound to lead to cette tromperie mutuelle of which Pascal speaks. But I have often wondered, while admiring the splendid portrait of Tartuffe, whether such a monster ever, or at least often, has walked the stage of life; whether Moliere ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... highest refinement and delicacy of the comic of observation consists in this, that the characters disclose themselves unconsciously by traits which involuntarily escape from them. To this species of comic element, the way in which Oronte introduces his sonnet, Orgon listens to the accounts respecting Tartuffe and his wife, and Vadius and Trissotin fall by the ears, undoubtedly belongs; but the endless disquisitions of Alceste and Philinte as to the manner in which we ought to behave amid the falsity and corruption of the world do not in the slightest ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... too frank, may be; and dared Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared, Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought Into the light their secret thought. Therefore the TARTUFFE-throng who say "Couvrez ce sein," and look that way,— Therefore the Priests of Sentiment Rose on him with their garments rent. Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting Plies ever round some generous thing, Buzzed ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... whatsoever hindrance it has been to me in point of profit, many of my friends can bear me witness, that I have not once murmured against that decree. The same fortune once happened to Moliere, on the occasion of his "Tartuffe;" which, notwithstanding, afterwards has seen the light, in a country more bigot than ours, and is accounted amongst the best pieces of that poet. I will be bold enough to say, that this comedy is of the first rank of those which I have written, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden |
