Sophocles Quotes - Page 2

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

One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.

It is not in words that I should wish my life to be distinguished, but rather in things done.

To throw away an honest friend is as it were to throw your life away.

Kindness gives birth to kindness.

Which would you choose if you could:pleasure for yourself despite your friendsor a share in their grief?

Seize the hour.

Shall not ILearn 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?

If you try to cure evil with evilyou will add more pain to your fate.

A lie never grows old.

CHORUS:You that live in my ancestral Thebes, behold this Oedipus,- him who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful; not a citizen who did not look with envy on his lot- see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him!Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.

How dangerous can false reasoning prove!

Hail the sun! the brightest of all that everDawned on the City of Seven Gates, City of Thebes!Hail the golden dawn over Dirce's riverRising to speed the flight of the white invaders Homeward in full retreat!" - Chorus

The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength

Those swift to think are not always secure.

May the dead forgive me, I can do no otherBut as I am commanded; to do more is madness." - Ismene, Antigone (The Theban Plays) by Sophocles

Evil gains work their punishment.

One learns by doing the thing for though you think you know it you have no certainty until you try.

TEIRESIAS:I tell you, king, this man, this murderer(whom you have long declared you are in search of,indicting him in threatening proclamationas murderer of Laius)- he is here.In name he is a stranger among citizensbut soon he will be shown to be a citizentrue native Theban, and he'll have no joyof the discovery: blindness for sightand beggary for riches his exchange,he shall go journeying to a foreign countrytapping his way before him with a stick.He shall be proved father and brother bothto his own children in his house; to herthat gave him birth, a son and husband both;a fellow sower in his father's bedwith that same father that he murdered.Go within, reckon that out, and if you find memistaken, say I have no skill in prophecy.

You win the victory when you yield to friends.

Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.

It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.

And also because - Oh, my darling, my darling, forgive me; I’m going to cause you quite a lot of pain.

When a man has lost all happiness he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

OEDIPUS: Upon the murderer I invoke this curse-whether he is one man and all unknown, or one of many- may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearthI pray that I myself may feel my curse. On you I lay my charge to fulfill all this for me, for the God, and for this land of ours destroyed and blighted, by the God forsaken.

You must remember that no one lives a life free from pain and suffering.

Chance never helps those who do not help themselves.

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

OEDIPUS:O, O, O, they will all come,all come out clearly! Light of the sun, let melook upon you no more after today!I who first saw the light bred of a matchaccursed, and accursed in my livingwith them I lived with, cursed in my killing.

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.

Do not believe that you alone can be right.The man who thinks that,The man who maintains that only he has the powerTo reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul—A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty.

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

A city which belongs to just one man is no true city

There is much that is strange, but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness

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

The only crime is pride.

Alas, how terrible is wisdomwhen it brings no profit to the man that's wise!This I knew well, but had forgotten it,else I would not have come here.

Best to live lightly unthinkingly.

What fate can be worse than to know we have no one but ourselves to blame for our misfortunes!