Pierre de Beaumarchais > Quotes

“Nowadays what isn't worth saying is sung.

(Aujourd'hui ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante.)”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville

“I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.”
― Beaumarchais

“Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.”
― Beaumarchais Pierre Augustin Caron De

“where love is concerned, too much is never enough”
― Pierre De Beaumarchais

“It's your world, but I make my way in it. At fifteen, no, I couldn't stand up to you. The age of illusions, when we know nothing, we hope for everything; we're wandering in a mist ... And the half of the world that's never had any use for us, suddenly is besieging us. You need us, you adore us, you're suffering for us. You want everything--except to know what we think. You look deep in our eyes--and put your hand up our dress. You call us, "Pretty thing." That confuses us. The most beautiful woman, the highest ranked, lives half dazzled by constant attention, half stifled by obvious contempt. We think all we're good for is pleasing you--till one day, long acquaintance with you dispels the last mist. In a clear light, we suddenly see you as you are--and generally we start preferring ourselves. At thirty, I could finally say no--or really say yes. That's when you begin backing away from us. Now I'm full-grown. I pursue my happiness the same as any man.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro): Vocal Score

“It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.”
― Pierre Beaumarchais

“Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, madam: that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals.”
― Pierre Beaumarchais

“I grant men the land, the government, the wealth, all the chances. I accept that you have to hold all the cards, since that's the only way you know how to play; but I refuse to swallow your disrespect.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro): Vocal Score

“A thing too silly to be said can be sung.”
― Pierre-Augustine Caron de Beaumarchais

“It is not necesssary to understand things in order to argue about them.”
― Caron De Beaumarchais

“La difficulté de réussir ne fait qu’ajouter à la nécessité d’entreprendre.”
― Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville ou La Précaution Inutile

“Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d’être obligé d’en pleurer.”
― Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville

“No, my lord Count, you shan't have her... you shall not have her! Just because you are a great nobleman, you think you are a great genius—Nobility, fortune, rank, position! How proud they make a man feel! What have you done to deserve such advantages? Put yourself to the trouble of being born—nothing more. For the rest—a very ordinary man! Whereas I, lost among the obscure crowd, have had to deploy more knowledge, more calculation and skill merely to survive than has sufficed to rule all the provinces of Spain for a century!”
― Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro): Vocal Score

“Only one thing to it: a strong stomach. The guts to gladhand a man you're going to stab in the back; pledge allegiance to principles you stomp on every day; righteously denounce some despot in the press and sell him arms under the table. The talent to whip up the voters' worst passions while you seem to call on their highest instincts, and the sense to stay wrapped in the flag. That's politics: I'll take the simple life.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro): Vocal Score

“A great man is doing you enough good when he isn't doing you harm.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville ou La Précaution Inutile

“Everything belonging to a loved one is precious.”
― Beaumarchais

“At last I have what I wanted. Am I happy? Not really, but what's missing? My soul no longer has that piquant activity conferred by desire. Oh, we shouldn’t delude ourselves, pleasure isn’t in the fulfillment, but in the pursuit”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

“Клвевтете, клеветете, от клеветата винаги остава нещо.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

“FIGARO. I’d say that the nonsense that finds its way into print only matters to the people who would like to ban it; that without the freedom to criticize, praise is meaningless”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“FIGARO. What he says isn’t always the same as what he means. Watch out for words that slip out when he’s talking, those tiny gestures, the way he moves: it’s the key to a man’s character. There’s something wicked afoot. It’s obvious he believes nothing can stop him, because to me he seems… craftier, wilier, more smug—in fact he’s like these imbeciles here in France who start cheering before the battle’s been won! You must try and be as devious as he is: butter him up, tell him what he’d like to hear, and whatever he wants, don’t say no.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“FIGARO. Such a fantastic chain of events! How did it all happen to me? Why those things and not others? Who pointed them in my direction? Having no choice but to travel a road I was not aware I was following, and which I will get off without wanting to, I have strewn it with as many flowers as my good humour has permitted. But when I say my good humour, how can I know if it is any more mine than all the other bits of me, nor what this ‘me’ is that I keep trying to understand: first, an unformed bundle of indefinable parts, then a puny, weak-brained runt, a dainty frisking animal, a young man with a taste for pleasure and appetites to match, turning his hand to all trades to survive—sometimes master, sometimes servant as chance dictated, ambitious from pride, hard-working from necessity, but always happy to be idle! An orator when it was safe to speak out, a poet in my leisure hours, a musician as the situation required, in love in crazy fits and bursts. I’ve seen it all, done it all, had it all. Then the bubble burst and I was too disillusioned… Disillusioned!”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“Când te naști, alege soarta
De ești rege sau argat.
Iscusința minții drege
Ce-ntâmplarea a stricat.”
― Beaumarchais Pierre Augustin Caron De, The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro): Vocal Score

“BAZILE. Slander, peculiar? You don’t know what the word means if you can dismiss it so easily! I have seen the most decent, honest men brought virtually to their knees by it. Believe me, there’s no downright lie, no tissue of horrors, no tittle-tattle so absurd that you can’t get the crass, nosy population of any city to swallow if you set about it the right way, and here in Seville we have experts! It starts as a faint whisper, skimming the ground like a swallow before the storm, pianissimo. It whirrs and scatters, and as it spreads it shoots out poisoned barbs. A mouth catches one and, piano, piano, hooks it deftly into a convenient ear. The damage is done. It breeds, creeps, multiplies and, rinforzando, it hops like some fiend from mouth to mouth. Then suddenly, don’t ask me how, you see Slander rear up, hissing, bulging, swelling as you watch. It takes flight, spreads its wings, swoops, swirls, enfolds, claws, seizes, erupts, and explodes and turns, God only knows how, into a general clamour, a public crescendo, a universal chorus of hate and condemnation. Is there a man alive who can survive it?”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

“COUNT. The fact is, when you start losing your temper, even the most tightly controlled imagination will run wild, just as it does in dreams.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“FIGARO. Of course. Ever since people started noticing that in time yesterday’s inanity turns into today’s wisdom, and that little old lies, planted haphazardly, grow into vast and mighty truths, there have been countless varieties! Truths you know but cannot reveal, for not every truth is suitable for telling. Truths you repeat but don’t believe, for not every truth is worth believing.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“« Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n'est pas d'éloge flatteur »”
― Beaumarchais, Le Mariage de Figaro

“Il ne faut pas me dire deux fois les choses ; il ne faut pas me les dire deux fois.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

“ROSINE. What gives you the right?
BARTHOLO. The oldest right in the world: the right of the strong.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“Sait-on gré du superflu à qui nous prive du nécessaire?”
― Beaumarchais

“COUNT. What’s to stop you taking her with you to London?

FIGARO. A man who was married and had to be away so much? I’d never hear the end of it.

COUNT. But with your qualities and brains you could climb the ladder and end up with an important government post one of these days.

FIGARO. Brains? Climb the ladder? Your Lordship must think I’m stupid. Second-rate and grovelling, that’s the thing to be, and then the world’s your oyster.

COUNT. All you’d have to do is take a few lessons in politics from me.

FIGARO. I know what politics is.

COUNT. Like you know the key to the English language?

FIGARO. Not that it’s anything to boast about. It means pretending you don’t know what you do know and knowing what you don’t, listening to what you don’t understand and not hearing what you do, and especially, claiming you can do more than you have the ability to deliver. More often that not, it means making a great secret of the fact that there are no secrets; locking yourself in your inner sanctum where you sharpen pens and give the impression of being profound and wise, whereas you are, as they say, hollow and shallow; playing a role well or badly; sending spies everywhere and rewarding the traitors; tampering with seals, intercepting letters, and trying to dignify your sordid means by stressing your glorious ends. That’s all there is to politics, and you can have me shot if it’s not.

COUNT. But what you’ve defined is intrigue.

FIGARO. Call it politics, intrigue, whatever you want. But since to me the two things are as alike as peas in a pod, I say good luck to whoever has anything to do with either. ‘Truly, I love my sweetheart more’, as old King Henry’s song goes.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother