To create a public scandal is what’s wicked; to sin in private is not a sin.

The line satirizes a morality based on appearances rather than conscience. It suggests a hypocritical ethic in which wrongdoing is condemned only when it becomes visible and threatens one’s reputation or social order; private vice, so long as it remains hidden, is treated as harmless or even “not a sin.” In Molière’s comic world, such reasoning exposes how social institutions can reward dissimulation and punish candor, turning ethics into public relations. The quote’s sting lies in its inversion of genuine moral accountability: it implies that the true “wickedness” is not the act itself but the embarrassment it causes—an attitude Molière repeatedly targets in characters who cloak self-interest in the language of virtue.