Quotes from Jean Racine

Elle meurt dans mes bras d'un mal qu'elle me cache.

What I can claim is that no other work of mine depicts virtue with greater prominence: here the slightest misdemeanour is severely punished; the mere thought of wrongdoing is viewed with as much horror as the enactment of it; lapses that derive from love are treated as absolute failings; the passions are represented only to demonstrate the destructive anarchy to which they give rise; and vice is everywhere portrayed in colours which cause its ugliness to be known for what it is and abhorred.

Est-ce ainsi que vos yeux consolent ma disgrâce?

Homine imperito nunquam quidquam injustius. [There is nothing more unfair than an ignoramus.]

J'ai cru que votre amour allait finir son cours. Je connais mon erreur, et vous aimez toujours.

PHEDRE J'ai voulu te paraître odieuse, inhumaine. Pour mieux te résister, j'ai recherché ta haine. De quoi m'ont profité mes inutiles soins ? Tu me haïssais plus, je ne t'aimais pas moins. Acte II, scène V

Too much virtue can be criminal.

I have pushed virtue to outright brutality.

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.

The faith that acts not, is it truly faith?

Can a faith that does nothing be called sincere?