Pierre Corneille Playwright

Gender: Male
Citizenship: France
Born: Jun 6, 1606
Died: Oct 1684

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian, and one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine.

As a young man, he earned the valuable patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, who was trying to promote classical tragedy along formal lines, but later quarrelled with him, especially over his best-known play Le Cid about a medieval Spanish warrior, which was denounced by the newly formed Académie française for breaching the unities. He continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years.

Peace is produced by war.

peace & war

He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.

death & fear

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

happiness

We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.

happiness

Happiness seems made to be shared.

happiness

We never taste a perfect joy our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.

sadness

A true king is neither husband nor father he considers his throne and nothing else.

power

Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!

aging

To die for one's country is such a worthy fate that all compete for so beautiful a death.

death

Each instant of life is a step toward death.

death

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

power

Every man of courage is a man of his word.

courage

My sweetest hope is to lose hope.

hope

One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

sympathy

Deceit is the game of petty spirits, and that is by nature a woman's quality.

nature