Bernard-Joseph Saurin

Bernard-Joseph Saurin (1706 – 17 November 1781) was a French lawyer, poet, and playwright.

Quotes

Classical and Foreign Quotations

W. Francis H. King, ed. Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), nos. 1253, 2372, 2407, 2868

• La loi permet souvent ce que défend l’honneur.
  • Law oft allows what honour must forbid.
    • Blanche et Guiscard (1763), 5, 6 (spoken by Blanche)

• Qu’une nuit paraît longue à la douleur qui veille!
  • How long the night that’s passed wn wakeful grief!
    • Blanche et Guiscard (Œuvres, Paris, 1783, 2 vols., 8vo), 5, 5 (spoken by Blanche)

• Rien ne manque à sa gloire, il manquait à la nôtre.
  • Nothing is wanting to his fame, he was wanting to our own.
    • Inscription written beneath the bust of Molière, when, in 1773, a hundred years after his death, it was placed in the Academy to which in his lifetime he was refused admission.

• La loi de l'univers, c'est malheur aux vaincus!
  • Woe to the conquered is the law of the world!
    • Spartacus (Œuvres, 2 vols., Paris, 1783), 3, 3 (Messala to Spartacus)
    • Compare the exclamation of Brennus, as quoted by Livy, 5, 48, 9: Væ victis! ("Woe to the conquered!").