# Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon

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

* 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.

## External links

* T. B. Harbottle; P. H. Dalbiac, Dictionary of Quotations: French and Italian (1904)
* W. F. H. King, Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904)
* Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922)