Pierre Corneille's Quotes

In recounting our woes, we often soothe them.

In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate.

It is a crime against the State to be powerful enough to commit one.

It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.

It matters more how one gives than what one gives.

Just vengeance does not call for punishment.

Love is a tyrant sparing none.

Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power.

My reason, it's true, controls my feelings, but whatever its authority, it doesn't rule them so much as tyrannize them.

My sweetest hope is to lose hope.

Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!

One half of my life has put the other half in the grave.

Peace is produced by war.

Reason and love are sworn enemies.

Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect.

The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame.

The greater the effort, the greater the glory.

The subject of a good tragedy must not be realistic.

They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.

To die for one's country is such a worthy fate that all compete for so beautiful a death.

To he who avenges a father, nothing is impossible.

To vanquish without peril is to triumph without glory.

True, I am young, but for souls nobly born valor doesn't await the passing of years.

We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.

When the patient loves his disease, how unwilling he is to allow a remedy to be applied.

When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory in the triumph.

We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.

Deceit is the game of petty spirits, and that is by nature a woman's quality.

We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.

A liar is always lavish of oaths.

Treachery is noble when aimed at tyranny.

Desire increases when fulfillment is postponed.

A Victory without danger is a triumph without glory.

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.

Oh, how sweet it is to pity the fate of an enemy who can no longer threaten us!

Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse.

To win without risk is to triumph without glory.

A good memory is needed after one has lied.

I can be forced to live without happiness, but I will never consent to live without honor.

One is often guilty by being too just.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

I don't know how to defend myself: surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion.

Self-love is the source of all our other loves.

This dark brightness that falls from the stars.

To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred.

One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

As great as kings may be, they are what we are: they can err like other men.

A first impulse was never a crime.

A true king is neither husband nor father; he considers his throne and nothing else.

Ambition aspires to descend.