Top 100 Corneille Quotes

#1. Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not.

Pierre Corneille

#2. Discovering new species is a passion. A day without collecting plants is painful for me.

Corneille Ewango

#3. Desire increases when fulfillment is postponed.

Pierre Corneille

#4. Heaven absolves all crimes committed to gain a throne Once Heaven gives it to us.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#7. Ambition, having reached the summit, longs to descend.

Pierre Corneille

#8. A first impulse was never a crime.

Pierre Corneille

#9. Whoever can do as he pleases, commands when he entreats.

Pierre Corneille

#10. It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

#11. Rome, if you do not wish me to betray you, make enemies that I can hate!

Pierre Corneille

#12. I joined the Wildlife Conservation Society, working there, in 1995, but I started working with them as a student in 1991. I was appointed as a teaching assistant at my university because I accomplished with honor.

Corneille Ewango

#13. Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.

Samuel Johnson

#14. It is the gift of heaven and not of reason.

Pierre Corneille

#15. Rome is no longer in Rome, it is here where I am.

Pierre Corneille

#16. It is hard to hate what one has loved, and a half-extinguished fire is soon relit.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#18. The greater the risk, the sweeter the fruit.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#20. It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice.

Pierre Corneille

#21. To myself alone do I owe my fame.

Pierre Corneille

#22. These flattering mirrors reflect imperfectly what is within; the countenance is often a gay deceiver. What defects of mind lie hidden under its beauty! What fair exteriors conceal base souls!

Pierre Corneille

#23. He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty.

Pierre Corneille

#24. He should be envied Who when his strength is spent lays down his life. Old age reserves a melancholy fate For noble souls before their life is done.

Pierre Corneille

#25. My sweetest hope is to lose hope.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#28. The Pygmies rely on the forest for their very life. They know everything about finding and using plants, animal behavior, and forest survival. Working with these wonderful people has been incredibly valuable.

Corneille Ewango

#29. I would tell you I love you, Sir, if I knew what it was to love.

Pierre Corneille

#30. As for our gods, we have a few too many to be true.

Pierre Corneille

#31. He who pardons easily invites offense.

Pierre Corneille

#32. Sir, what does it matter whom I serve, so long as I am right?

Pierre Corneille

#33. One ought to have a good memory when he has told a lie.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#37. [Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.

Horace Walpole

#38. Those who easily forgive invite offenses.

Pierre Corneille

#39. The subject of a good tragedy must not be realistic.

Pierre Corneille

#40. Liberty may be of no more use Than stirring up the flame of civil wars; Then, by disorder fatal to the world, One wants no king, the other wants no equal.

Pierre Corneille

#41. I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived.

Pierre Corneille

#42. Love lives on hope, and dies when hope is dead;
It is a flame which sinks for lack of fuel.

Pierre Corneille

#43. Love is a tyrant sparing none.

Pierre Corneille

#44. Danger breeds best on too much confidence.

Pierre Corneille

#45. Violence is just, where kindness is vain.

Pierre Corneille

#46. What destroys one man preserves another.

Pierre Corneille

#47. He who is hated by all can not expect to live long.

Pierre Corneille

#48. It takes good memory to keep up a lie.

Pierre Corneille

#49. Obedience is a hard profession.

Pierre Corneille

#50. I believe everything to be just when a king ordains it.

Pierre Corneille

#51. All great virtues become great men.

Pierre Corneille

#52. 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.

Pierre Corneille

#53. It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.

Pierre Corneille

#54. The fire which seems out often sleeps beneath the cinders.

Pierre Corneille

#55. A liar is full of oaths.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#57. He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be.

Pierre Corneille

#58. The greater the effort,
the greater the glory.

Pierre Corneille

#59. We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#61. If you betray me, can I take a better revenge than to love the person you hate?

Pierre Corneille

#62. Brave men are brave from the very first.

Pierre Corneille

#63. Ah, though a Roman, I am not less a man.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#65. To win without risk is to triumph without glory.

Pierre Corneille

#66. Here honor binds me, and I wish to satisfy it.

Pierre Corneille

#67. When I went to university, I decided that I would like to do something related to plant ecology, because I felt that plants were so beautiful. When I am studying plants, I feel like I am talking with some kind of supernatural life, like I am talking with someone who does not speak.

Corneille Ewango

#68. Your arm is unvanquished, but not invincible.

Pierre Corneille

#69. Flee an enemy who knows your weakness.

Pierre Corneille

#70. Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille.

Napoleon Bonaparte

#71. Treachery is noble when aimed at tyranny.

Pierre Corneille

#72. Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare.

Pierre Corneille

#73. Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying.

Pierre Corneille

#74. One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

Pierre Corneille

#75. How sweet to die after one's enemies.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#77. Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!

Pierre Corneille

#78. When obedience is so impious, revolt is a necessity.

Pierre Corneille

#79. Time is a great manager: it arranges things well.

Pierre Corneille

#80. I love you much less than my God, but much more than myself.

Pierre Corneille

#81. This dark brightness that falls from the stars.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#83. Your heart is mine; there I reign. I am content.

Pierre Corneille

#84. Doubt, but still hate!

Pierre Corneille

#85. We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

Pierre Corneille

#86. Ambition becomes displeasing when it is once satiated; there is a reaction; and as our spirit, till our last sigh, is always aiming toward some object, it falls back on itself, having nothing else on which to rest; and having reached the summit, it longs to descend.

Pierre Corneille

#87. Death was to be my glory, but destiny has refused it.

Pierre Corneille

#88. A good memory is needed after one has lied.

Pierre Corneille

#89. The fire which seems extinguished often slumbers beneath the ashes.

Pierre Corneille

#90. In relating our misfortunes, we often feel them lightened.

Pierre Corneille

#91. How delicious is pleasure after torment!

Pierre Corneille

#92. In recounting our woes, we often soothe them.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#94. He who plays advisor is no longer ambassador.

Pierre Corneille

#95. The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#97. Happiness is meant to be shared.

Pierre Corneille

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

Pierre Corneille

#99. Just as We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness. So too we never taste sadness completely, as things could always be worse in some way and for this we can be grateful.

Pierre Corneille

#100. If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people only more so.

Pierre Corneille

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