Jean Racine Quotes

Crime, like virtue, has its degrees.

Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degre s. Crime, like virtue, has its degrees.

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

Virtuous and vicious every man must be, few in the extreme, but all in the degree.

Small crimes always precede great ones. Never have we seen timid innocence pass suddenly to extreme licentiousness.

He who possess virtue in abundance may be compared to an infant.

You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you.

No acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.

The pure in heart are slow to credit calumnies, because they hardly comprehend what motives can be inducements to the alleged crimes.

Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.

We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

Goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.

So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.

There needs no small degree of address to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense.

The supreme sway of chastity over the senses makes her queenly.

Purity is something that cannot be attained except by piling effort upon effort.

Is not this lily pure? What fuller can procure A white so perfect, spotless clear As in this flower doth appear?

You've got to be good or as bad as the devil.

Nay, droop not, fellows; innocence should be bold.

O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings.

A blush is the sign which Nature hangs out to show where chastity and honor dwell.

He, full of bashfulness and truth, loved much, hoped little, and desired naught.

That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness.