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Daily Inspiration Quote by Moliere

"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it"

About this Quote

Glory, Moliere implies, isn’t a moral medal pinned on the deserving; it’s a public effect produced under pressure. The line flatters ambition while quietly instructing the audience on how prestige is manufactured: not by clean victory, but by visible struggle. An “obstacle” is stagecraft as much as circumstance. The bigger it is, the clearer the narrative arc, the louder the applause. You can almost hear the playwright in it, calibrating the distance between setback and triumph the way a comedian times a pause.

In Moliere’s France, where reputation traveled through salons and court favor, “glory” wasn’t just personal pride; it was social currency. The subtext is pragmatic: if you can’t control your station, you can control your story. Obstacles become proof of worth, a way to convert disadvantage into legitimacy. That logic still powers everything from political mythmaking to influencer redemption arcs: hardship is the credential that makes success feel earned, and therefore shareable.

There’s irony here, too, because Moliere’s theater relentlessly punctures self-regard. His hypocrites and strivers love the idea of glory, but they also love the performance of it. The sentence can read as encouragement, yet it carries a warning: if glory scales with obstacles, people will start shopping for obstacles, exaggerating them, or refusing easy solutions that would make the ending less impressive. Moliere’s genius is to offer a motto that sounds heroic while exposing how easily heroism becomes a pose.

Quote Details

TopicOvercoming Obstacles
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Moliere. (2026, January 18). The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greater-the-obstacle-the-more-glory-in-12634/

Chicago Style
Moliere. "The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greater-the-obstacle-the-more-glory-in-12634/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-greater-the-obstacle-the-more-glory-in-12634/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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The Greater the Obstacle, Moliere on Glory and Overcoming
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About the Author

Moliere

Moliere (January 15, 1622 - February 17, 1673) was a Playwright from France.

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