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.

Where love is concerned, too much is not even enough.

I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.

As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.

These days what's not worth saying gets set to music.

I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.

Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius. You took the trouble to be born, but no more.

It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.

Vilify, Vilify, some of it will always stick.

A great man does enough for us when he refrains from doing us harm.

Because you are a great noble, you think you are a great genius! Nobility, a fortune, a rank, appointment to office: all this makes a man so proud! What did you do to earn all this? You took the trouble to get born—nothing more.

The art of making war with success being the fruit of courage combined with prudence, intelligence and experience, a companion in arms of the great Frederick, who was with him during twenty-two years, seemed to us all a man most fit to assist Monsieur Washington.

The respectful esteem which I have toward that brave people who so well defend liberty under your guidance, has induced me to form a plan of concurring in the great work by establishing an extensive commercial house solely for the purpose of serving you in Europe and supplying you with necessaries of every kind ... Your deputies, gentlemen, can find in me a sure friend, an asylum in my house, money in my coffers, and every means of facilitating their operations

I desire to serve your country as if it were my own, and I hope to find in the friendship of a generous people the true reward of a labor that I consecrate to them.

Were men angels the devices of politics could be disdained, and earth would be a celestial abode; but while men were men, and the English were wicked, one must profit by their troubles.

This poor English people with its frantic liberty, inspires compassion in every reflecting mind. Never has it known the pleasure of living tranquilly under a wise and virtuous king.

Every fisherman reduced to poverty by the English, has become a soldier and vows he will avenge the ruin of his family and his country's liberty

I make myself laugh at everything, so that I do not weep.

It is by no means necessary to understand things to speak confidently about them.

Nowadays what isn't worth saying is sung.

I would rather worry without need than live without heed.

To make a living, craftiness is better than learnedness.

Calumniate, calumniate; there will always be something which sticks.

Plays, gentlemen, are to their authors what children are to women: they cost more pain than they give pleasure.