Pierre Corneille
Omnipotence is bought with ceaseless fear.Collection: Power
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.Collection: Gratitude
A liar is full of oaths.Collection: Liars
I am young, it is true; but in noble souls valor does not wait for years.Collection: Years
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.Collection: Kings
What destroys one man preserves another.Collection: Men
Ambition displeases when it has been sated ... having reached the peak, it aspires to descend.Collection: Ambition
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.Collection: Fall
One doesn't wish to see those to whom one owes so much.Collection: Gratitude
All great virtues become great men.Collection: Men
To he who avenges a father, nothing is impossibleCollection: Father
He who fears not death fears not a threat.Collection: Threat
A monarch must sometimes rule even himself: he who wants everything must risk very little.Collection: Power
If you betray me, can I take a better revenge than to love the person you hate?Collection: Love
There are secret ties, there are sympathies, by the sweet relationship of which souls that are well matched attach themselves to each other, and are affected by I know not what, which cannot be explainedCollection: Sympathy
An example is often a deceptive mirror, and the order of destiny, so troubling to our thoughts, is not always found written in things pastCollection: Past
He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty.Collection: Despair
As for our gods, we have a few too many to be true.Collection: God
Violence is just, where kindness is vain.Collection: Kindness
When a woman has the gift of silence she possesses a quality above the vulgar. It is a gift of Heaven seldom bestowed; without a little miracle it cannot be accomplished; and Nature suffers violence when Heaven puts a woman in the humor of observing silence.Collection: Silence
As our self-interests differ, so do our feelings.Collection: Self
Obedience is a hard profession.Collection: Obedience
Time is a great manager: it arranges things well.Collection: Great Men
He who allows me to rule is in fact my masterCollection: Facts
My sweetest hope is to lose hopeCollection: Sweetest
The man who pardons easily courts injury.Collection: Men