Top 140 Pierre Corneille Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Your heart is mine; there I reign. I am content.”

— Pierre Corneille

52. “He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be.”

— Pierre Corneille

53. “I am young, it is true; but in noble souls valor does not wait for years.”

— Pierre Corneille

54. “A good memory is needed after one has lied.”

— Pierre Corneille

55. “The man who pardons easily courts injury.”

— Pierre Corneille

56. “He who can live in infamy is unworthy of life.”

— Pierre Corneille

57. “He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.”

— Pierre Corneille

58. “I am Roman, alas, because Horace is Roman.”

— Pierre Corneille

59. “Here honor binds me, and I wish to satisfy it.”

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

62. “Just vengeance does not call for punishment.”

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

64. “One ought to have a good memory when he has told a lie.”

— Pierre Corneille

65. “It is hard to hate what one has loved, and a half-extinguished fire is soon relit.”

— Pierre Corneille

66. “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

67. “It is only blood that can wash away such an outrage; die or kill.”

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

69. “Clemency is the noblest trait which can reveal a true monarch to the world.”

— Pierre Corneille

70. “It takes good memory to keep up a lie.”

— Pierre Corneille

71. “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

72. “In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate.”

— Pierre Corneille

73. “All evils are equal when they are extreme.”

— Pierre Corneille

74. “All great virtues become great men.”

— Pierre Corneille

75. “He on whom heaven confers a sceptre knows not the weight till he bears it.”

— Pierre Corneille

76. “Each instant of life is a step toward death.”

— Pierre Corneille

77. “My sweetest hope is to lose hope.”

— Pierre Corneille

78. “It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice.”

— Pierre Corneille

79. “To die for one’s country is such a worthy fate that all compete for so beautiful a death.”

— Pierre Corneille

80. “Ah, though a Roman, I am not less a man.”

— Pierre Corneille

81. “Ambition aspires to descend.”

— Pierre Corneille

82. “Death was to be my glory, but destiny has refused it.”

— Pierre Corneille

83. “Whoever can do as he pleases, commands when he entreats.”

— Pierre Corneille

84. “How delicious is pleasure after torment!”

— Pierre Corneille

85. “And the combat ceased, for want of combatants.”

— Pierre Corneille

86. “Be it only for a day, it is still a glory without equal to be master of the world just that day.”

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

88. “I agree to, or rather aspire to, my doom.”

— Pierre Corneille

89. “He who plays advisor is no longer ambassador.”

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

91. “Treachery is noble when aimed at tyranny.”

— Pierre Corneille

92. “Rome alone can resist Rome.”

— Pierre Corneille

93. “He who despises life is his life’s master.”

— Pierre Corneille

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

— Pierre Corneille

95. “Heaven absolves all crimes committed to gain a throne Once Heaven gives it to us.”

— Pierre Corneille

96. “It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.”

— Pierre Corneille

97. “It matters more how one gives than what one gives.”

— Pierre Corneille

98. “Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.”

— Pierre Corneille

99. “Those who easily forgive invite offenses.”

— Pierre Corneille

100. “They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.”

— Pierre Corneille