Jean Racine

C'est Vénus tout entière à sa proie attachée.

Mes yeux sont éblouis de la clarté du jour.

Le crime fait la honte, et non pas l'échafaud.

Ah! que de maux sans fin j'ai souffert pour l'amour!

Love lives through sacrifice, and is nourished by absences.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.

My only hope lies in my despair.

A man who does not know how to curse does not know how to bless either.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

To repair the irreparable ravages of time.

I am a slave to my passions.

Virtue is the only nobility.

In the theater, truth is what convinces.

Jealousy is the art of counting the misfortunes of others.

The mind has a thousand eyes.

One is never as unhappy as one thinks.

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise.

Absence diminishes commonplace passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire.

The joy of a spirit is to know who belongs to one.

I have said too much unto a heart like thine.