Aeschylus Quotes

High fortune, this in man's eye is god and more than god is this. ~ Aeschylus

Still to the sufferer comes, as due from God, a glory that to suffering owes its birth. ~ Aeschylus

Ares ever loves to pluck all the fairest flower of an armed host. ~ Aeschylus

All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have been blind as a bat not to have seen it long before, the ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader. George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course it was a pity that he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite of it. Chesterton has more sense than all the other moderns put together; bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and Milton by a strange coincidence had it too. Even among ancient authors the same paradox was to be found. The most religious (Plato, Aeschylus, Virgil) were clearly those on whom I could really feed. On the other hand, those writers who did not suffer from religion and with whom in theory my sympathy ought to have been complete -- Shaw and Wells and Mill and Gibbon and Voltaire -- all seemed a little thin; what as boys we called "tinny". It wasn't that I didn't like them. They were all (especially Gibbon) entertaining; but hardly more. There seemed to be no depth in them. They were too simple. The roughness and density of life did not appear in their books. ~ C.S. Lewis

God planteth in mortal men the cause of sin whensoever he wills utterly to destroy a house. ~ Aeschylus

The holy heaven yearns to wound the earth, and yearning layeth hold on the earth to join in wedlock; the rain, fallen from the amorous heaven, impregnates the earth, and it bringeth forth for mankind the food of flocks and herds and Demeter's gifts; and from that moist marriage-rite the woods put on their bloom. ~ Aeschylus

The unenvied man is not enviable. ~ Aeschylus

Death is a softer thing by far than tyranny. ~ Aeschylus

This is a sickness rooted and inherent in the nature of a tyranny: that he that holds it does not trust his friends. ~ Aeschylus

I know how men in exile feed on dreams ~ Aeschylus

Watchful are the Gods of all Hands with slaughter stained. The black Furies wait, and when a man Has grown by luck, not justice, great, With sudden overturn of chance They wear him to a shade, and, cast Down to perdition, who shall save him? ~ Aeschylus

Be it mine to draw from wisdom's fount, pure as it flows, that calm of soul which virtue only knows. ~ Aeschylus

The sleeping brain has eyes that give us light; we can never see our destiny by day. ~ Aeschylus

Human prosperity never rests but always craves more, till blown up with pride it totters and falls. From the opulent mansions pointed at by all passers-by none warns it away, none cries, 'Let no more riches enter!'. ~ Aeschylus

Death is softer by far than tyranny. ~ Aeschylus

You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense. ~ Aeschylus

They who prosper take on airs of vanity. ~ Aeschylus

Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. ~ Aeschylus

Pain both ways and what is worse? ~ Aeschylus

Jars neither of wine nor of water shall fail in the houses of the rich. ~ Aeschylus

Courage! Suffering, when it climbs highest, lasts not long. ~ Aeschylus

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety. ~ Aeschylus

Wiles and deceit are female qualities. ~ Aeschylus

But still the block of Vengeance firm doth stand, and Fate, as swordsmith, hammers blow on blow. ~ Aeschylus

Look - can't you see? The more you kick
against the pricks, the more you suffer. ~ Aeschylus

The evils of mortals are manifold; nowhere is trouble of the same wing seen. ~ Aeschylus

There is no disgrace in an enemy suffering ill at an enemy's hand, when you hate mutually. ~ Aeschylus

All known great religions have had an exoteric aspect, that is, exterior, profane, for the masses of believers, and another esoteric, for a restricted select minority of initiates. So it was with the Egyptian and Greek cults. Those ignorant people who pompously speak to us about Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and the 'rational thought of the Greeks' ignore the fact that behind their ideas one finds the Eleusinian Mysteries of Delphi and elsewhere, in which these same philosophers, above all Plato, Aeschylus, Euripides took part, though they could not speak of it in public. The Orphic cults and mythology are the foundation of the philosophical thought of Ancient Greece. The word esoteric itself comes from the Greek work eisoteo and means 'to enter into' and 'to open a door' (towards the Gods: Theo, eiso-theo). ~ Miguel Serrano

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals? ~ Aeschylus

Only one accomplishment is beyond both the power and the mercy of the Gods. They cannot make the past as though it had never been. ~ Aeschylus

There is a limit to the best of health, disease is always a near neighbor. ~ Aeschylus

I have been schooled by my own suffering: I've learned the many ways of being purged. ~ Aeschylus

What good is it to live a life that brings pains? ~ Aeschylus

And there they ring the walls, the young, the lithe. The handsome hold the graves they won in Troy; the enemy earth rides over those who conquered.
~ Aeschylus

The gods! long since they hold us in contempt,
Scornful of gifts thus offered by the lost!
Why should we fawn and flinch away from doom? ~ Aeschylus

Wisdom comes alone through suffering. ~ Aeschylus

A world of wealth is trash if men are wanting; men who have no wealth never find fortune smiling as their strength deserves. ~ Aeschylus

For this our task hath Fate spun without fail to last for ever sure, that we on man weighed down with deeds of hate should follow till the earth his life immure. Nor when he dies can he boast of being truly free. ~ Aeschylus

For children preserve the fame of a man after his death. ~ Aeschylus

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain. ~ Aeschylus

I warn the marauder dragging plunder, chaotic, rich beyond all rights: he'll strike his sails, harried at long last, stunned when the squalls of torment break his spars to bits. ~ Aeschylus

The words of truth are simple. ~ Aeschylus

To many mortals silence great gain brings. ~ Aeschylus

As long as there are men the bulwark is safe. ~ Aeschylus

Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain? ~ Aeschylus

And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin. ~ Aeschylus

Time brings all things to pass. ~ Aeschylus

Here he lies like something melting away. His mother's blood comes quaking howling brassing bawling blacking down his mad little veins. ~ Aeschylus

For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow: it is for him who has done a deed to suffer. ~ Aeschylus

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow. ~ Aeschylus

Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time. These lines are from a section of doubtful or spurious fragments. ~ Aeschylus

ATHENA: There are two sides to this dispute. I've heard only one half the argument. ( ... ) So you two parties, summon your witnesses, set out your proofs, with sworn evidence to back your stories. Once I've picked the finest men in Athens, I'll return. They'll rule fairly in this case, bound by a sworn oath to act with justice. ~ Aeschylus

No bribes. Nothing that passes under the roof of a temple Or under the roof of the mouth, can appease heaven's anger Or deflect its aim. ~ Aeschylus

On him who wields power gently, the god looks favorably from afar. ~ Aeschylus

The account in the gospel of John says three times that Jesus was angry. One of the words used is the Greek term for "furious indignation" - the word used by Aeschylus to describe war horses rearing up on their hind legs, snorting through their nostrils, and charging into battle. This was the reaction of Jesus of Nazareth when face to face with a loved one's death. The world that God created good and beautiful and whole was now broken and in ruins. In moments Jesus was going to do something, but his first response was outrage - instinctive, blazing outrage. Clearly, death was even worse in his eyes than in ours. ~ Os Guinness

No mortal can complete his life unharmed and unpunished throughout--ah ah! Some troubles are here now, some will come later." Chorus, Aeschylus' "Eumenides" from the Oresteia ~ Aeschylus

Respect the altar of Justice and do not, looking to profit, dishonor it by spurning with godless foot; for punishment will come upon you. ~ Aeschylus

God always strives together with those who strive. ~ Aeschylus

Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit. ~ John F. Kennedy

The force of necessity is irresistible. ~ Aeschylus

Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering. ~ Aeschylus

For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life. ~ Aeschylus

About 2500 years ago Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, wrote, He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. These remarkable photos and the stories that accompany them should be on billboards from sea to shining sea, so the pain and suffering they represent might fall drop by drop upon the American psyche and against our will, by the awful grace of God, wisdom might come to these United States and her foreign policy. ~ Gioconda Belli

Everyone is ready to speak ill of a stranger. ~ Aeschylus

FURIES:
Over the beast doomed to the fire
this is the chant, scatter of wits,
frenzy and fear, hurting the heart,
song of the Furies
binding brain and blighting blood
in its stringless melody. ~ Aeschylus

The act of evil breeds others to follow, young sins in its own likeness. ~ Aeschylus

For sufferers it is sweet to know before-hand clearly the pain that still remains for them. ~ Aeschylus

Aeschylus said, 'In war, truth is the first casualty.' now we can add politics." Captain Hank Bracker ~ Hank Bracker

Man shall learn from man's lot. ~ Aeschylus

For not many men . . . can love a friend who fortune prospers without envying; and about the envious brain cold poison clings and doubles all the pain life brings him. His own woundings he must nurse, and feel another's gladness like a curse. ~ Aeschylus

A great ox stands on my tongue. ~ Aeschylus

I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year's watch that lying on the Atreidae's roof on bended arm, dog- like, I have kept, marking the conclave of all night's stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane, when they rise. ~ Aeschylus

Words are doctors for the diseased temper. ~ Aeschylus

Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny. ~ Aeschylus

The tongue of slander is too prompt with wanton malice to wound the stranger. ~ Aeschylus

But from the good health of the mind comes that which is dear to all and the object of prayer-happiness. ~ Aeschylus

The high strength of men knows no content with limitation. ~ Aeschylus

Only when man's life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man fortunate. ~ Aeschylus

Art is far feebler than necessity. ~ Aeschylus

Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might. ~ Aeschylus

Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word - every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus. ~ Aeschylus

Alas for the affairs of men! When they are fortunate you might compare them to a shadow; and if they are unfortunate, a wet sponge with one dash wipes the picture away. ~ Aeschylus

Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast, He dieth not, unless the appointed time, The limit of his life's span, coincide; Nor does the man who by the hearth at home Sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees. ~ Aeschylus

Misfortune wandering the same track lights now upon one and now upon another. ~ Aeschylus

There is something about the way that Greek poets, say Aeschylus, use metaphor that really attracts me. I don't think I can imitate it, but there's a density to it that I think I'm always trying to push towards in English. ~ Anne Carson

In few men is it part of nature to respect a friend's prosperity without begrudging him. ~ Aeschylus

For a murderous blow let murderous blow atone. ~ Aeschylus

I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence. ~ Aeschylus

We spoil ourselves with scruples long as things go well. ~ Aeschylus

I have not need to promise what I cannot do. ~ Aeschylus

For the lips of Zeus do not know how to lie, but bring to fulfilment every word. ~ Aeschylus

For Hades is mighty in calling men to account below the earth, and with a mind that records in tablets he surveys all things. ~ Aeschylus

Rumours voiced by women come to nothing. ~ Aeschylus

Suffering brings experience. ~ Aeschylus

Every thing has been achieved except for the gods to rule; for no one is free save Jupiter. ~ Aeschylus

So in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft: With our own feathers, not by others' hands, Are we now smitten. ~ Aeschylus

Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence. ~ Aeschylus

The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,
Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,
In golden glory, like some strange new sun ... ~ Aeschylus

I can't speak for Aeschylus or Epictetus or Aristotle. But I am convinced of this: they would have hated having their wisdom confined to classrooms and textbooks. This is wisdom about how to live. And it's your property as much as anyone's. It is yours. Take it. Use it. ~ Eric Greitens

I take my cue from deeds, not words. ~ Aeschylus