Top 178 Quotes & Sayings by Pierre Corneille
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French dramatist Pierre Corneille.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Flee an enemy who knows your weakness.
Do your duty and leave the rest to heaven.
We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.
Treachery is noble when aimed at tyranny.
We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.
Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!
Desire increases when fulfillment is postponed.
We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.
I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived.
Happiness seems made to be shared.
The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame.
Deceit is the game of petty spirits, and that is by nature a woman's quality.
One often calms one's grief by recounting it.
He who forgives readily only invites offense.
He who pardons easily invites offense.
Reason and love are sworn enemies.
Love is a tyrant sparing none.
It matters more how one gives than what one gives.
A first impulse was never a crime.
Self-love is the source of all our other loves.
This dark brightness that falls from the stars.
Clemency is the noblest trait which can reveal a true monarch to the world.
To vanquish without peril is to triumph without glory.
The greater the effort, the greater the glory.
He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.
To win without risk is to triumph without glory.
Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare.
How delicious is pleasure after torment!
He who plays advisor is no longer ambassador.
It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.
Brave men are brave from the very first.
Just vengeance does not call for punishment.
My sweetest hope is to lose hope.
When the patient loves his disease, how unwilling he is to allow a remedy to be applied.
A true king is neither husband nor father; he considers his throne and nothing else.
Ambition aspires to descend.
Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power.
Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect.
Danger breeds best on too much confidence.
To he who avenges a father, nothing is impossible.
He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be.
Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse.
Peace is produced by war.
A Victory without danger is a triumph without glory.
The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.
True, I am young, but for souls nobly born valor doesn't await the passing of years.
A good memory is needed after one has lied.
They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.
I have deserved neither so much honor or so much disgrace.
When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory in the triumph.
Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not.
I don't know how to defend myself: surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion.
It takes good memory to keep up a lie.
To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred.
Those who easily forgive invite offenses.
A liar is always lavish of oaths.
Every man of courage is a man of his word.
He who is hated by all can not expect to live long.
One ought to have a good memory when he has told a lie.
To die for one's country is such a worthy fate that all compete for so beautiful a death.
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