Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Pierre Corneille (French Playwright)

Pierre Corneille (1606–84) was a French poet and dramatist, considered the creator of French classical tragedy. His tragedies typically explore the conflict between heroic love and devotion to duty. His heroes’ moral dilemmas are ambiguous; they have inspired divergent views of his meaning.

Born into a family of magistrates in Rouen in Normandy, Corneille studied law and practiced in Rouen until 1630, before turning to write plays. He moved to Paris in 1629, where his comedy Mélite (1629; Melite, 1776) proved highly successful. His La Galerie du Palais (1632) and La Place Royale (1633–34) are notable for their evocation of modern urban life and the love affairs of respectable young people.

Corneille also wrote tragicomedies, enjoying his first great success both in France and in England with Le Cid (1637.) After its unconventionality caused a scandal and elicited adverse judgment by the Académie Française, he rewrote it and called it a tragedy. Le Cid had a profound impact on French drama, especially in Corneille’s setting of intense psychological conflict.

Corneille’s other major tragedies were Horace (1640; Horatius, 1656,) Cinna (1640; Cinna’s Conspiracy, 1713) and Polyeucte (1642; Polyeuctes, 1655.) He produced a verse translation of Thomas a Kempis’s Imitatio Christi (1651.)

Corneille returned to the stage in 1659 with Oedipe, and in 1671 joined Molière and Philippe Quinault in writing the opera Psyché. His last works were Pulchérie (1672) and Suréna (1674; Surenas, 1969.) Corneille exerted a powerful influence on the English dramatists of the Restoration, specifically John Dryden and Charles Cotton.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Pierre Corneille

Those who easily forgive invite offenses.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Forgiveness

Flee an enemy who knows your weakness.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Weakness

The secret of giving affectionately is great and rare; it requires address to do it well; otherwise we lose instead of deriving benefit from it.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Gifts

Generosity is toe accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Generosity

Love is a tyrant sparing none.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Love

Brave men are brave from the very first.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Brave

To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Difficulties, Entrepreneurs, Adversity, Endurance, Winning, Risk, Risk-taking, Win

One ought to have a good memory when he has told a lie.
—Pierre Corneille

Just vengeance does not call for punishment.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Vengeance, Revenge, One liners

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Charity, Gifts, One liners, Giving

A liar is full of oaths.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Lying, Lies, Deception/Lying

A first impulse was never a crime.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Crime

It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Shame

The man who pardons easily, courts injury.
—Pierre Corneille

Every man of courage is a man of his word.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Courage

Danger breeds best on too much confidence.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Danger, Confidence

Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Power

To conquer without danger is to conquer without glory.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Danger

Among wellborn spirits courage does not depend on age.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Courage

Happiness seems made to be shared.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Happiness

To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster: Either condemn or crown your hatred.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Revenge

Ambition, having reached the summit, longs to descend.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Reality, Ambition, Opportunities

He on whom Heaven confers a sceptre knows not the weight till he bears it.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Kings

Do your duty and leave the rest to the gods.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Duty

Every brave man shuns, more than death, the shame of lying.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Lying

It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Punishment

We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Danger

Those who resolve to conquer or die, are rarely conquered.
—Pierre Corneille

Peace is produced by war.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Peace

All evils are equal when they are extreme.
—Pierre Corneille
Topics: Evil

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