"To vanquish without peril is to triumph without glory"
About this Quote
Victory is cheap when it comes with no risk, Corneille insists, and the barb is aimed less at cowards than at the entire social machinery that hands out laurels. "Vanquish without peril" sounds like a clean win, but he frames it as a kind of moral fraud: triumph that costs nothing can’t confer honor, because honor is basically a receipt for danger endured.
The line works because it flips what power wants you to believe. Courts and commanders prefer a world where outcomes are all that matter: win the battle, secure the marriage, keep the throne. Corneille, writing in a France obsessed with reputation and rank, drags the spotlight back to process. Glory isn’t the victory itself; it’s the proof of character under threat. Without peril, the victor hasn’t demonstrated courage, only advantage.
As a dramatist of the 17th-century stage, Corneille is also defending drama’s core fuel: stakes. A hero who can’t lose is boring, and a conquest without hazard is theatrically weightless. The subtext is almost meta: if your life has no risk, your narrative has no meaning. That’s why the sentence still lands in modern contexts where "winning" is increasingly optimized - via money, algorithms, inherited status, or institutional muscle. Corneille doesn’t romanticize suffering; he’s warning that when peril is removed, what remains is mere efficiency, not greatness.
The line works because it flips what power wants you to believe. Courts and commanders prefer a world where outcomes are all that matter: win the battle, secure the marriage, keep the throne. Corneille, writing in a France obsessed with reputation and rank, drags the spotlight back to process. Glory isn’t the victory itself; it’s the proof of character under threat. Without peril, the victor hasn’t demonstrated courage, only advantage.
As a dramatist of the 17th-century stage, Corneille is also defending drama’s core fuel: stakes. A hero who can’t lose is boring, and a conquest without hazard is theatrically weightless. The subtext is almost meta: if your life has no risk, your narrative has no meaning. That’s why the sentence still lands in modern contexts where "winning" is increasingly optimized - via money, algorithms, inherited status, or institutional muscle. Corneille doesn’t romanticize suffering; he’s warning that when peril is removed, what remains is mere efficiency, not greatness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | From Le Cid (1636) by Pierre Corneille — French: "Vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire" (commonly translated "To vanquish without peril is to triumph without glory"). |
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