C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Corneille
A good memory is needed once we have lied.
A liar is always lavish of oaths.
All great virtues become great men.
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.
Brave men are brave from the very first.
Clemency is the surest proof of a true monarch.
Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying.
Every moment of life is a step towards death.
Generosity is the accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants.
Happiness seems made to be shared.
He on whom heaven confers a sceptre knows not the weight till he bears it.
He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, goes on increasing.
He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.
He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty.
Heaven often regulates effects by their causes, and pays the wicked what they have deserved.
I am young, it is true; but in noble souls valor does not wait for years.
It is a law of the gods which is never broken, to sell somewhat dearly the great benefits which they confer on us.
It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.
Patience and time conquer all things.
The man who pardons easily courts injury.
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. This man gives lavishly in a way that obliges no one; the manner of giving is worth more than the gift. Another loses intentionally at a game, thus disguising his present; another forgets a jewel, which would have been refused as a gift. A generous booby seems to be giving alms to his mistress when he is making a present.
The wrinkles on his forehead are the marks which his mighty deeds have engraved there, and still indicate what he was in former days.
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 explained.
These flattering mirrors reflect imperfectly what is within; the countenance is often a gay deceiver. What defects of mind lie hidden under its beauty! What fair exteriors conceal base souls!
To myself alone do I owe my fame.
We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.
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.