Top 100 Corneille Quotes
#1. 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
#2. Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
Samuel Johnson
#3. [Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.
Horace Walpole
#4. 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
#5. "eL Seed" was inspired by the French play Le Cid by Pierre Corneille. It was seeing "Le Cid" coming from the Arabic name "el sayed," which means "the master, the man." So I called myself like that because I was 16; I said, "Yes, I'm the man." That's how it started.
EL Seed
#6. People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable, pitiful.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#8. Discovering new species is a passion. A day without collecting plants is painful for me.
Corneille Ewango
#10. Heaven absolves all crimes committed to gain a throne Once Heaven gives it to us.
Pierre Corneille
#11. When the patient loves his disease, how unwilling he is to allow a remedy to be applied.
Pierre Corneille
#12. Kindness acts Not always as you think; a hated hand Renders it odious.
Pierre Corneille
#16. Rome, if you do not wish me to betray you, make enemies that I can hate!
Pierre Corneille
#17. 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
#20. It is hard to hate what one has loved, and a half-extinguished fire is soon relit.
Pierre Corneille
#21. To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred.
Pierre Corneille
#23. I don't know how to defend myself: surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion.
Pierre Corneille
#24. It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice.
Pierre Corneille
#26. 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
#27. He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty.
Pierre Corneille
#28. 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
#30. To die for one's country is such a worthy fate that all compete for so beautiful a death.
Pierre Corneille
#31. It is a crime against the State to be powerful enough to commit one.
Pierre Corneille
#32. 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
#33. I would tell you I love you, Sir, if I knew what it was to love.
Pierre Corneille
#36. Sir, what does it matter whom I serve, so long as I am right?
Pierre Corneille
#38. A monarch must sometimes rule even himself: he who wants everything must risk very little.
Pierre Corneille
#39. When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory in the triumph.
Pierre Corneille
#40. My reason, it's true, controls my feelings, but whatever its authority, it doesn't rule them so much as tyrannize them.
Pierre Corneille
#43. 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
#45. Love lives on hope, and dies when hope is dead;
It is a flame which sinks for lack of fuel.
Pierre Corneille
#55. 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
#56. It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
Pierre Corneille
#57. The fire which seems out often sleeps beneath the cinders.
Pierre Corneille
#59. 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
#63. A good memory is needed once we have lied.
[Fr., Il faut bonne memoire apres qu'on a menti.]
Pierre Corneille
#64. If you betray me, can I take a better revenge than to love the person you hate?
Pierre Corneille
#70. 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
#75. 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
#78. True, I am young, but for souls nobly born valor doesn't await the passing of years.
Pierre Corneille
#82. I love you much less than my God, but much more than myself.
Pierre Corneille
#84. A true king is neither husband nor father; he considers his throne and nothing else.
Pierre Corneille
#87. We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.
Pierre Corneille
#88. 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
#91. The fire which seems extinguished often slumbers beneath the ashes.
Pierre Corneille
#92. In relating our misfortunes, we often feel them lightened.
Pierre Corneille
#95. After having won a scepter, few are so generous as to disdain the pleasures of ruling.
Pierre Corneille
#98. Those who resolve to conquer or die, are rarely conquered.
Pierre Corneille
#100. Oh, how sweet it is to pity the fate of an enemy who can no longer threaten us!
Pierre Corneille
