La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile
Meaning: Faulting a work costs nothing compared with making one.
Language: French
Literally: Criticism is easy, but art is difficult
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From Philippe Néricault Destouches' 1732 comedy Le Glorieux (The Conceited Count). The line is quoted at critics so routinely that its theatrical origin is usually forgotten.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Tant va la cruche à l'eau qu'à la fin elle se casse — Repeated risk-taking eventually catches up with you.
- Porter la culotte — To be the one who makes the decisions in a household.
- N'en avoir cure — To be entirely indifferent to something.
- Virer sa cuti — To undergo a complete change of convictions.
- Au grand dam de quelqu'un — To someone's considerable detriment or annoyance.
- Trouver son chemin de Damas — To undergo a sudden and total conversion.
More French idioms
- Une épée de Damoclès — A disaster hanging over someone, liable to fall at any moment.
- Entretenir une danseuse — To maintain a costly indulgence that serves no purpose.
- À l'usage du Dauphin — Expurgated; censored for delicate sensibilities.
- Les dés sont pipés — The outcome is rigged in advance.
- Au débotté — On the spot, with no time to prepare.
- Les délices de Capoue — Comfort that saps the will to keep fighting.
From our false friends
- Sensible — Actually means 'sensitive'. For sensible/level-headed, say raisonnable.
- Librairie — Actually means 'bookshop'. A library is une bibliothèque.
- Pain — Actually means 'bread'. The hurting kind of pain is la douleur.
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