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Oh, how sweet it is to pity the fate of an enemy, when we have no longer anything to fear from him!

— Pierre Corneille La Mort de Pompée (1643)

Ô! qu'il est doux de plaindre
Le sort d'un ennemi, quand il n'est plus à craindre!

Original text (French)

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Sympathy

More quotes by Pierre Corneille

Brave men are brave from the very first.

Le Cid (1636)

As great as kings may be, they are what we are: they can err like other men.

Le Cid (1636)

Who is all-powerful should fear everything.

Cinna (1641)

He who is insulted has a right to be outraged, as unpunished audacity only increases!

The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame.

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O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;
where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.

John Greenleaf Whittier

The craving for sympathy is the common boundary-line between joy and sorrow.

Julius Hare Guesses at Truth (1827)

Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.

Ian Maclaren

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pierre Corneille (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.