Pierre Corneille Quotes

He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be.

Desire increases when fulfillment is postponed.

Flee an enemy who knows your weakness.

A monarch must sometimes rule even himself: he who wants everything must risk very little.

For souls nobly born, valor doesn't await the passing of years

This dark brightness that falls from the stars.

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

Love is a tyrant sparing none.

And the combat ceased, for want of combatants.

The worst of all States is the democratic State.

Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not.

Omnipotence is bought with ceaseless fear.

Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect.

I have deserved neither so much honor or so much disgrace.

After having won a scepter, few are so generous as to disdain the pleasures of ruling.

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

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

Clemency is the surest proof of a true monarch. [Fr., La clemence est la plus belle marque Qui fasse a l'univers connaitre un vrai monqrque.]

The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame.

Brave men are brave from the very first. [Fr., Les hommes valeureux le sont au premier coup.]

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

One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

He who can live in infamy is unworthy of life.

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

An example is often a deceptive mirror, and the order of destiny, so troubling to our thoughts, is not always found written in things past

A good memory is needed after one has lied.

Your virtue raises your glory above your crime.

One doesn't wish to see those to whom one owes so much.

He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.

In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate.

Who is all-powerful should fear everything.

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

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

He who pardons easily invites offense.

It is a law, of the gods which is never broken, to sell somewhat dearly the great benefits which they confer on us.

Generosity is the accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants.

I agree to, or rather aspire to, my doom.

Those who resolve to conquer or die, are rarely conquered.

A first impulse was never a crime.

Kindness acts Not always as you think; a hated hand Renders it odious.

All evils are equal when they are extreme. [Fr., Et tous maux sont pareils alors qu'ils sont extremes.]

The subject of a good tragedy must not be realistic.

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

A good memory is needed once we have lied. [Fr., Il faut bonne memoire apres qu'on a menti.]

In recounting our woes, we often soothe them.

To myself alone do I owe my fame. [Fr., Je ne dois qu'a moi seul toute ma renommee.]

A liar is always lavish of oaths. [Fr., Un menteur est toujours prodigue de serments.]

Ambition aspires to descend

To myself alone do I owe my fame.

Ambition, having reached the summit, longs to descend.