The principal rule of art is to please and to move. All the other rules were created to achieve this first one.
— Jean Racine
A noble heart cannot suspect in others the pettiness and malice that it has never felt.
I have pushed virtue to outright brutality.
Too much virtue can be criminal.
Justice in the extreme is often unjust.
I embrace my rival, but only to strangle him.
According as the man is, so must you humour him.
Many a time a man cannot be such as he would be, if circumstances do not admit of it.
It behooves a prudent person to make trial of everything before arms.
In fine, nothing is said now that has not been said before.
The glory of my name increases my shame. Less known by mortals, I could better escape their eyes.
A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.
Hell, covering all with its gloomy vapors, has cast shadows on even the holiest eyes.
Thank the Gods! My misery exceeds all my hopes!
Without money honor is merely a disease.
How good is God! How sweet his yoke!
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance.
I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me.
I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.
Do not they bring it to pass by knowing that they know nothing at all?
Love is not a fire to be shut up in a soul. Everything betrays us: voice, silence, eyes; half-covered fires burn all the brighter.
There are no secrets that time does not reveal.
Is a faith without action a sincere faith?
My death, taking the light from my eyes, gives back to the day the purity which they soiled.
On the throne, one has many worries; and remorse is the one that weighs the least.
It is a maxim of old that among themselves all things are common to friends.
Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking.
I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won't; when you won't, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination.
If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.
