Sophocles Quotes

» Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

» Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.

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

» Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

» How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth.

» A short saying often contains much wisdom.

» Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.

» A lie never lives to be old.

» There is a point at which even justice does injury.

» If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: "Thou shalt not ration justice."

» Without labor nothing prospers.

» Success is dependent on effort.

» No enemy is worse than bad advice.

» Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

» To him who is in fear everything rustles.

» One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.

» For the dead there are no more toils.

» Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.

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

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

» I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.

» There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?

» The dice of Zeus always fall luckily.

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

» In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

» The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest.

» It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

» There is no success without hardship.

» Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.

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

» Enemies' gifts are no gifts and do no good.

» Best to live lightly, unthinkingly.

» Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

» Not to be born is, past all prizing, best.

» It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

» Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness.

» Wisdom is the most important part of happiness.

» Who seeks shall find.

» Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.

» One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.

» Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.

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

» One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.

» There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick.

» He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.

» There is no greater evil than anarchy.

» All a man's affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.

» Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.

» A man growing old becomes a child again.

» There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries.

» There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad.

» There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune.

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

» To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it.

» A human being is only breath and shadow.

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

» For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.

» Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed.

» Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain?

» Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.

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

» How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.

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

» I see the state of all of us who live, nothing more than phantoms or a weightless shadow.

» If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.

» The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water.

» Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.

» No one longs to live more than someone growing old.

» A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.

» Don't you know that silence supports the accuser's charge?

» But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.

» Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.

» If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.

» Even a poor man can receive honors.

» Evil counsel travels fast.

» No lie ever reaches old age.

» Despair often breeds disease.

» Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.

» Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.

» Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.

» Silence is an ornament for women.

» Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.

» Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.

» Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.

» A day lays low and lifts up again all human things.

» Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near.

» The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.

» If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too.

» A word does not frighten the man who, in acting, feels no fear.

» Always desire to learn something useful.

» Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.

» If it were possible to cure evils by lamentation and to raise the dead with tears, then gold would be a less valuable thing than weeping.

» Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.

» War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.

» It is best to live however one can be.

» It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.

» Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.

» I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.

» Evil gains work their punishment.

» God's dice always have a lucky roll.

» Wise thinkers prevail everywhere.

» No man loves the bearer of bad tidings.

» Not even Ares battles against necessity.

» Better not to exist than live basely.

» Not even old age knows how to love death.

» When trouble ends even troubles please.

» If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.

» Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.

» For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.

» There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.

» There is a time when even justice brings harm.

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

» Isn't it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies?

» It's a terrible thing to speak well and be wrong.

» No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.

» A fearful man is always hearing things.

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

» Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.

» No one who errs unwillingly is evil.

» No speech can stain what is noble by nature.

» Old age and the passage of time teach all things.

» It is a base thing for a man among the people not to obey those in command. Never in a state can the laws be well administered when fear does not stand firm.

» Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool.

» Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere.

» All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit.

» For shameful deeds are taught by shameful deeds.

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

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

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

» You win the victory when you yield to friends.

» But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.

» It's impossible to speak what it is not noble to do.

» For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.

» You should not consider a man's age but his acts.

» Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.

» To live without evil belongs only to the gods.

» A state is not a state if it belongs to one man.

» Fortune raises up and fortune brings low both the man who fares well and the one who fares badly; and there is no prophet of the future for mortal men.

» Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

» Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.

» Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.

» Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness.

» Children are the anchors of a mother's life.

» Much wisdom often goes with brevity of speech.

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Who Said: "Either the law exists, or it does not." Click To See

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