Love Quote by Moliere

Integrity is framed here less as a moral accessory than as a kind of social atmosphere: something you can be "clothed" in, as natural and public as a coat. Moliere, the great anatomist of manners, knows how rarely that happens. The line is utopian on purpose, then quietly cuts: if people were truly just, candid, and kind, we wouldn't need the bulky wardrobe of secondary virtues we spend our lives buttoning up.

The intent is not to flatter integrity; it's to expose a civilization built around compensations. "Other virtues" start to look like elaborate workarounds for a basic deficit. Patience becomes what you practice when someone refuses to be frank. Humility becomes what you perform when justice is absent and power is uneven. Even prudence can read like a survival skill in a world where kindness is unreliable. Moliere's wit lies in the demotion: virtues we praise as noble may actually be symptoms of a broken social contract.

Context matters. Writing in 17th-century France, Moliere staged hypocrisy as entertainment for an audience living under rigid hierarchy and religious scrutiny, where appearance often mattered more than conscience. The line carries his signature irony: it imagines a simple moral solution while assuming the audience knows simplicity is precisely what's missing. "Well-nigh useless" is the sly kicker; it suggests our moral culture may be less a ladder toward goodness than a toolkit for managing dishonesty. The subtext is bleakly funny: if integrity were common, much of what passes for virtue would lose its job.