Pierre Corneille

I can be forced to live without happiness, but I will never consent to live without honor.

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

Reason and love are sworn enemies.

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

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

I agree to, or rather aspire to, my doom.

My sweetest hope is to lose hope.

Flee an enemy who knows your weakness.

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

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

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

How delicious is pleasure after torment!

Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse.

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

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

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

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

A first impulse was never a crime.

Ambition aspires to descend.

Brave men are brave from the very first.