Sophocles Quotes

Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.

Afterthought makes the first resolve a liar.

The eyes of men love to pluck the blossoms from the faded flowers they turn away.

Wisdom is a dreadful thing when it brings no knowledge to its possessor.

Show me a man who longs to live a day beyond his time who turns his back on a decent length of life, I'll show the world a man who clings to folly.

It is not righteousness to outrage A brave man dead, not even though you hate him.

Now let the weeping cease; Let no one mourn again. These things are in the hands of God.

Never honor the gods in one breath and take the gods for fools the next.

The shimmering night does not stay for mortals, not misfortunes, nor wealth, but in a moment it is gone, and to the turn of another comes joy and loss.

Many things are formidable, and none more formidable than man.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

To know that all is well, even if late will come to know it, is at least some gain.

For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams.

For kindness begets kindness evermore,But he from whose mind fades the memoryOf benefits, noble is he no more.

What men have seen they know ...

A man's anger can never age and fade away, not until he dies. The dead alone feel no pain.

Alas! How sad when reasoners reason wrong.

No honest man will argue on every side

Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.

No speech can stain what is noble by nature.

The golden eye of justice sees, and requites the unjust man.

You'll never find a man on Earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.

Opportunity is the best captain of all endeavor.

They are dying, the old oracles sent to Laius, now our masters strike them off the rolls. Nowhere Apollo's golden glory now
the gods, the gods go down.

Deem no man happy until he passes the edo fhis life without suffering grief.

A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.

Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always.

I recommend ... bread, meat, vegetables, and beer.

Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven.

The tyrant is a child of Pride Who drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity, Until from his high crest headlong He plummets to the dust of hope.

[S]ilence supports the accuser's charge?

Having advanced to the limit of boldness, child, you have stumbled against the lofty pedestal of Justice.

When I do not understand, I like to say nothing.

Every way
Leads but astray,

If they are just, they are better than clever.

There was the girl, screaming like an angry bird,
When it finds its nest left empt and little ones gone." - Sentry

There are times when even justice brings harm with it.

Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.

Truth is always the strongest argument.

To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task.

For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price.

Even the stout of heart shrink when they see the approach of death.

Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.

I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.

To Never Have been born may be the greatest boon of all

No man, my lord, should make a vow, for if
He ever swears he will not do a thing.

Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness.

And instead my beloved, luck sent you back to me colder than ashes, later than shadow.

Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong.

Alas for the seed of man.

It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.

Success is dependent on effort.

If you are out of trouble, watch for danger.

Both noun (eusebia) and verb (sebizo) derive from the Greek root seb-, which refers to the awe that radiates from gods to humans and is given back as worship. Everything related to this root has fear in it.

The curse of ignorance is that man without being good or evil is nevertheless satisfied with himself

Shall not I
Learn place and wisdom? Have I not learned this,
Only so much to hate my enemy,
As though he might again become my friend,
And so much good to wish to do my friend,
As knowing he may yet become my foe?

You chose to live, I chose to die.

The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach

There let her pray to the one god she worships: Death
who knows?
may just reprieve her from death. Or she may learn a last, better late than never, what a waste of breath it is to worship Death.

We long to have again the vanished past, in spite of all its pain.

Sister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon, And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death. ISMENE

Whoe'er imagines prudence all his own, Or deems that he hath powers to speak and judge Such as none other hath, when they are known, They are found shallow.

All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure evil with evil.

One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.

I know that you are deathly sick; and yet, sick as you are, not one is as sick as I.

When an oath is taken ... the mind is more attentive; for it guards against two things, the reproach of friends and offence against the gods.

Good advice, if there's any good in suffering. Quickest is best when trouble blocks the way.

I say that this crime is holy.

Time, seeing all things, has found
You out as you did not foresee.

Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected.

The powe if fate is something terrible. It cannot be escaped
not with wealth or by war,
not with a tower ir a sea-lashed black ship.

If you think my acts are foolishness; the foolishness may be in the fools eye.

What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman's excellence?

Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day.

Chorus:
'man after man after man
o mortal generations
here once
almost not here
what are we
dust ghosts images a rustling of air
nothing nothing
we breathe on the abyss
we are the abyss
our happiness no more than traces of a dream
the high noon sun sinking into the sea
the red spume of its wake raining behind it
we are you
we are you Oedipus
dragging your maimed foot
in agony
and now that I see your life finally revealed
your life fused with the god
blazing out of the black nothingness of all we know
I say
no happiness lasts nothing human lasts

I know I please where I must please the most.

Upon that foreign soil he chose
Died he! For ever laid
Low, in the kindly shade,
He left behind no tearless grief,
No measured mourning, dull and brief,
These eyes are wet
With weeping yet,
Nor know I how to find relief."

Antigone

The truth is ever best.

Much wisdom often goes with fewer words.

The blind man cannot move without a guide

What men have seen they know; but what shall come hereafter no man before the event can see, 1420 nor what end waits for him.

A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist

Of all human ills, greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny.

A lie never lives to be old.

Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.
That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,
Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul,
Pointing out the way to infamy and shame." - Creon

Let every man in mankind's frailtyConsider his last day; and let nonePresume on his good fortune until he findLife, at his death, a memory without pain.

The sleep of a sick man has keen eyes. It is a sleep unsleeping.

Oh my love take me there. Let me dwell where you are. I am already nothing, I am already burning. Oh my love, I was once part of you - take me too!

There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.

But when a god sends harm, no man can sidestep it, no matter how strong he may be.

If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles.

I will not live by rules like those.

Without labor nothing prospers.

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.

Whatever God has brought about Is to be borne with courage.

All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

No enemy is worse than bad advice.

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

Sentry: King, may I speak?
Creon: Your very voice distresses me.
Sentry: Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience?
Creon: By God, he wants to analyze me now!
Sentry: It is not what I say, but what has been done, that hurts you.
Creon: You talk too much.

It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.