Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.
I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the challenges that creativity poses, highlighting how initial inspiration can be easier than maintaining momentum.
Molière's quote expresses a common struggle among artists and writers: the difficulty of sustaining creativity after the initial idea or inspiration. While starting strong can be exhilarating and motivating, continuing to produce quality work can be fraught with obstacles, leading to frustration and self-doubt. This sentiment resonates with anyone involved in creative endeavors, where the pressure to consistently perform can overshadow initial enthusiasm.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a creative writing workshop to illustrate the common hurdles writers face.
More from Moliere
All quotes →Betrayed and wronged in everything, I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king, And seek some spot unpeopled and apart Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart. - Molière, The Misanthrope
Long is the road from conception to completion.
Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.
Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.
How easy love makes fools of us.
Similar quotes
Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.
Being on stage is magic. There's nothing like it. You feel the energy of everybody who's out there. You feel it all over your body. When the lights hit you, it's all over, I swear it is.
Hip-hop saved me. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance.
I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.
The entire world of art has reached such a low level, it has been commercialized to such a degree that art and everything related to it has become one of the most trivial activities of our epoch.
Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as Normal American. Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to the White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of the Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick.