Racine Quotes & Sayings

You who love wild passions, flee the holy austerity of my pleasures. All here breathes of God, peace and truth. — Jean Racine

Sir, that much prudence calls for too much worry; I cannot foresee misfortunes so far away. — Jean Racine

There may be guilt when there is too much virtue. — Jean Racine

I will die if I lose you, but I will die if I wait longer. — Jean Racine

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance. — Jean Racine

Behind a veil, unseen yet present, I was the forceful soul that moved this mighty body. — Jean Racine

He who will travel far spares his steed. — Jean Racine

But Racine's extraordinary powers as a writer become still more obvious when we consider that besides being a great poet he is also a great psychologist. — Lytton Strachey

She wavers, she hesitates: in a word, she is a woman. — Jean Racine

Innocence has nothing to dread. — Jean Racine

When I'm carried away, isn't it clear that my heart contradicts my mouth? — Jean Racine

The fashions we call English in Paris are French in London, and vice versa. Franco-British hostility vanishes when it comes to questions of words and clothing. God save the King is a tune composed by Lully for a chorus in a play by Racine. — Honore De Balzac

My only hope lies in my despair. — Jean Racine

It behooves a prudent person to make trial of everything before arms. — Jean Racine

Vice, like virtue, Grows in small steps, and no true innocence Can ever fall at once to deepest guilt. — Jean Racine

By dying I wanted to maintain my honor, and hide a flame so black from the daylight! — Jean Racine

And forever goodbye! Forever! Oh, Sir, can you imagine how dreadful this cruel word sounds when one loves? — Jean Racine

A benefit cited by way of reproach is equivalent to an injury. — Jean Racine

Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. — Jean Racine

Too much virtue can be criminal. — Jean Racine

Me, rule? Me, place the State under my law, when my feeble reason no longer rules even myself! — Jean Racine

The feeling of mistrust is always the last which a great mind acquires. — Jean Racine

Collect all the facts that can be collected about the life of Racine and you will never learn from them the art of his verse. All criticism is dominated by the outworn theory that the man is the cause of the work as in the eyes of the law the criminal is the cause of the crime. Far rather are they both the effects. — Paul Valery

It is a commonplace that Racine is untranslatable. This is not because his verse is difficult, but because it is not. — Kenneth Rexroth

Sergei recited a Pushkin poem in Russian while I recited a stanza by Racine from my French classical repertoire. Both of us, romantics at heart, were inebriated by the fresh air, the calm and the greenery surrounding us, and we decided to ride to a village where we could taste the local food and wash it down with beer for Sergei and tea for me. — Liliane Willens

People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable, pitiful. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Eating Out Alone"
The loneliness inside me is a place,
Harvard where no one might always be someone.
When we're alone people we run from change
to the mysterious and beautiful
I am eating alone at a small white table,
visible, ignored ... the moment that tries the soul,
an explorer going blind in polar whiteness.
Yet everyone who is seated is a lay,,
or Paul Claudel, at the next table declaiming:
"L'Academie Groton, eh, c'est une ecole des cochons."
He soars from murdered English to killing French,
no word unheard, no sentence understood
a vocabulary to mortify Racine ...
the minotaur steaming in a maze of eloquence — Robert Lowell

My death, taking the light from my eyes, gives back to the day the purity which they soiled. — Jean Racine

Do not they bring it to pass by knowing that they know nothing at all? — Jean Racine

Some smaller crimes always precede the great crimes. — Jean Racine

Love is not dumb. The heart speaks many ways. — Jean Racine

And do you count for nothing God who fights for us? — Jean Racine

Wrinkles on the brow are the imprints of exploits. — Jean Racine

You feign guilt in order to justify yourself. — Jean Racine

The heart that can no longer love passionately must with fury hate. — Jean Racine

Hell, covering all with its gloomy vapors, has cast shadows on even the holiest eyes. — Jean Racine

I embrace my rival, but only to strangle him. — Jean Racine

A single word often betrays a great design. — Jean Racine

Newton, Pascal, Bossuet, Racine, F?nelon
that is to say, some of the most enlightened men on earth, in the most philosophical of all ages
have been believers in Jesus Christ; and the great Cond?, when dying, repeated these noble words, "Yes, I shall see God as He is, face to face!". — Luc De Clapiers

Sun, I come to see you for the last time. — Jean Racine

Happiness heldis the seed
happiness shared is the flower,
happiness seems to be shared — Jean Racine

What does it matter if, by chance, a little vile blood be spilled? — Jean Racine

To repair the irreparable ravages of time. — Jean Racine

Thank the Gods! My misery exceeds all my hopes! — Jean Racine

The joys of the evil flow away like a torrent. — Jean Racine

The part I remember best is the beginning. — Jean Racine

The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love. — Jean Racine

The apex of perfection in equestrian art is not an exhibition of a great deal of different airs and movements by the same horse, but rather the conservation of the horse's enjoyment, suppleness and finesse during the performance, which calls for comparison with the finest ballet, or performance of an orchestra, or seeing a play by Racine, so moving is the sight of perfectly unisoned movements. — Nuno Oliveira

When will the veil be lifted that casts so black a night over the universe? God of Israel, lift at last the gloom: For how long will you be hidden? — Jean Racine

[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV. — Horace Walpole

I have pushed virtue to outright brutality. — Jean Racine

Felicity is in possession, happiness in anticipation. — Jean Racine

Flight is lawful, when one flies from tyrants. — Jean Racine

In their opinion, a tragedy with so little plot could not conform with the rules of drama. I enquired whether they were complaining that they had found my play boring. I was told that none of them was bored, that they were often touched by it, and that they would go and see it again with pleasure. What more do they want? — Jean Racine

The face of tyranny Is always mild at first. — Jean Racine

I can hear those glances that you think are silent. — Jean Racine

It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Without money honor is merely a disease. — Jean Racine

Small crimes always precedes great ones. — Jean Racine

Small crimes always precede great crimes. Whoever has been able to transgress the limits set by law may afterwards violate the most sacred rights; crime, like virtue, has its degrees, and never have we seen timid innocence pass suddenly to extreme licentiousness. — Jean Racine

He who has far to ride spares his horse. — Jean Racine

I felt for my crime a just terror; I looked on my life with hate, and my passion with horror. — Jean Racine

How good is God! How sweet his yoke! — Jean Racine

It is a maxim of old that among themselves all things are common to friends. — Jean Racine

According as the man is, so must you humour him. — Jean Racine

Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but nothing leads one to suppose that Racine in a barbarous age would have attained the grandeur, force and nature of Shakespeare. — Horace Walpole

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. — Jean Racine

Ah, why can't I know if I love, or if I hate? — Jean Racine

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. — Jean Racine

Is a faith without action a sincere faith? — Jean Racine

Do you think you can be righteous and holy with impunity? — Jean Racine

He who ruleth the raging of the sea, knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to His Holy Will. O Abner, I fear my God, and I fear none but Him. — Jean Racine

Hippolytus can feel, and feels nothing for me! — Jean Racine

Extreme justice is often injustice. — Jean Racine

A noble heart cannot suspect in others the pettiness and malice that it has never felt. — Jean Racine

Honor, without money, is a mere malady. — Jean Racine

I have loved him too much not to hate — Jean Racine

Henceforth the majesty of God revere;Fear Him, and you have nothing else to fear. — Jean Racine

I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me. — Jean Racine

Great crimes come never singly; they are linked To sins that went before. — Jean Racine

I loved you when you were unfaithful; what would I have done if you were true? — Jean Racine

Have there ever been more submissive slaves? Adoring, even in their irons, the God who punishes them. — Jean Racine

None love, but they who wish to love. — Jean Racine

The clear French landscape is as pure as a verse of Racine. — Paul Cezanne

Beckett despite his professed preference for Racine, is master and victim, and as such pervades Beckett's canonical drama, Endgame. Beckett's Hamlet follows the French model, in which excessive consciousness negates action, which is at some distance from Shakespeare's Hamlet. — Harold Bloom

Crime, like virtue, has its degrees. — Jean Racine

Pain is unjust, and all the arguments That cannot soothe it only rouse suspicion. — Jean Racine

How admirable and beautiful is the simplicity of the Evangelists! They never speak injuriously of the enemies of Jesus Christ, of His judges, nor of His executioners. They report the facts without a single reflection. They comment neither on their Master's mildness when He was smitten, nor on His constancy in the hour of His ignominious death, which they thus describe: And they crucified Jesus. — Jean Racine

I cherished you inconstant; what would I have done,
faithful? Now, even now, when your cruel mouth
so calmly speaks my death sentence, I wonder,
cold wretch, I wonder still, if I do not love you. — Jean Racine

There are no secrets that time does not reveal. — Jean Racine

The faith that acts not, is it truly faith? — Jean Racine

On the throne, one has many worries; and remorse is the one that weighs the least. — Jean Racine

It's no longer a warmth hidden in my veins: it's Venus entire and whole fastening on her prey. — Jean Racine

To save our imperiled honor everything must be sacrificed, even virtue. — Jean Racine

Disagreeable suspicions are usually the fruits of a second marriage. — Jean Racine

The crime of a mother is a heavy burden. — Jean Racine

Mere moments after stepping foot on French soil Pierre was leaving again. He had left the UK on a French passport identifying him as a 'Guillaume Racine'. The name existed only on that passport, the passenger manifest for the journey, and a prepaid Visa with which he had paid. Both the card and the passport would be shredded shortly. — Sean Campbell

Crime like virtue has its degrees; and timid innocence was never known to blossom suddenly into extreme license. — Jean Racine

Justice in the extreme is often unjust. — Jean Racine

Now my innocence begins to weigh me down. — Jean Racine