Jump to content

Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon

From Wikiquote

Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (13 January 1674 – 17 June 1762) was a French poet and tragedian. He is sometimes known as Crébillon père or Crébillon le Tragique to distinguish him from his son Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (Crébillon the Gay).

Quotes

[edit]
  • Le cœur des malheureux n'est qu'un trop sûr oracle.
    • The suffering heart is surest oracle.
    • Atrèe et Thyeste, Act V, Sc. I (Plisthène), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 124
  • II faut un terms au crime, et non à la vengeance.
    • 'Tis crime that must be ended, and not vengeance.
    • Atrée et Thyeste, Act V, Sc. IV (Atrée), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 63
  • Ainsi que le heros brille par ses exploits,
    La grandeur des bienfaits doit signaler les rois.
    • As all the world the hero's exploits sings,
      So should good deeds the glory be of kings.
    • Electre, Act II, Sc. IV (Egisthe), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 6
  • Le crime est toujours crime, et jamais la beauté
    N'a pu servir de voile à sa difformité.
    • Crime is aye crime, and beauty ne'er can be
      A veil to cover its deformity.
    • Pyrrhus, Act IV, Sc. IV (Pyrrhus), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 125
  • Je connais la fureur de tes soupçons jaloux,
    Mais j'ai trop de vertu pour craindre mon époux.
    • I know the fury of your jealous suspicions,
      But I have too much virtue to fear my husband.
    • Rhadamiste et Zénobie, Act IV, Sc. V (Zénobie), via Google Translate (July 2024)
  • A la cour d’un tyran, injuste ou légitime,
    Le plus léger soupçon tint toujours lieu de crime;
    Et cest être proscrit que d’être soupçonné.
    • At the court of a tyrant, whether usurped or legitimate, the least suspicion always amounts to crime, and to be suspected is to be proscribed.
    • Rhadamiste et Zénobie, Act V, Sc. II (Arsame), as reported by King (1904), no. 71
  • On n'est point criminel pour être ambitieux.
    • One is not criminal because ambitious.
    • Sémiramus, Act III, Sc. II (Bélus), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 169
  • La crainte fit les dieux, l'audace a fait les rois.
    • Fear made our gods, boldness has made our kings.
    • Xerxès, Act I, Sc. I (Artaban), reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 103; also reported by King (1904), no. 2149: "Fear made the gods, audacity made kings."
    • Cp. Petronius, Fragment 27, from whom it was borrowed verbatim by Statius, Thebaid, III, 661: Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.—"It was fear first made the gods."
  • La parole des rois n'est plus qu'une ombre vaine.
    • The word of kings is but an empty shadow.
    • Xerxès, Act I, Sc. VIII (Amestris), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 112
  • L'innocence a toujours confondu l'imposture.
    • By innocence imposture's aye confounded.
    • Xerxès, Act IV, Sc. VII (Amestris), as reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 98
  • Aucun fiel n’a jamais empoisonné ma plume.
    • My pen was never dipped in gall.
    • Discours de réception à l’Académie Française (1731), as reported by King (1904), no. 1745; also reported by Hoyt (1922), p. 48: "No gall has ever poisoned my pen."
    • Cp. Ovid, Tristia, II, 563:
      Non ego mordaci destrinxi carmine quenquam,
        Nec meus ullius crimina versus habet.
      Candidus a salibus suffusis felle refugi:
        Nulla venenato littera mixta joco est.
      I never wounded soul with verse of mine,
        Nor do my works a single charge contain:
      My pen is free of gall, and not a line
        Breathes poison, tho’ conveyed in joking strain.
[edit]
Wikipedia
Wikipedia