How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Scene.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue. We used Richard Wilbur's translation.
Quote #4
Cléante:
"There's a vast difference, so it seems to me,
Between true piety and hypocrisy:
How do you fail to see it, may I ask?
Is not a face quite different from a mask?" (1.5.9)
Cléante is right that there is a big difference between true piety and hypocrisy, but he seems unable to acknowledge that sometimes even big differences can be hard to see.
Quote #5
Tartuffe (Observing Dorine, and calling to his manservant offstage):
"Hang up my hair-shirt, put my scourge in place,
And pray, Laurent, for Heaven's perpetual grace.
I'm going to the prison now, to share
My last few coins with the poor wretches there."
Dorine (Aside):
"Dear God, what affectation! What a fake!" (2.2.1-2)
You don't need Dorine to tell you what a fraud Tartuffe is. He asks Laurent to put away his hair-shirt and scourge, instruments used to humble a person before God, in order that he might look holier in Dorine's eyes.
Quote #6
Tartuffe:
"But soon, fair being, I became aware
That my deep passion could be made to square
With rectitude, and with my bounden duty." (3.3.27)
While Tartuffe is able to square his passion (lust for Elmire) with his rectitude, there's no doubt he would allow anyone else that kind of free pass. He, like any hypocrite, can always justify his own actions – even though, here, he does not let us know what his justification is.