Sophocles

“Best of children, sisters arm-in-arm, we must bear what the gods give us to bear-- don't fire up your hearts with so much grief. No reason to blame the pass you've come to now.”

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

“The weak can defeat the strong in a case as just as mine.”

“They see you and me: they know my pain's a fact, my revenge is empty breath.”

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

“It's perfect justice: natures like yours are hardest on themselves.”

“Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong.”

“How terrible-- to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees!”

“Whatever is sought for can be caught, you know, whatever is neglected slips away.”

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

“Tell me the news, again, whatever it is... sorrow and I are hardly strangers. I can bear the worst.”

“No yield to the dead! Never stab the fighter when he's down. Where's the glory, killing the dead twice over?”

“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.”

“ISMENE: How can I live alone, without her?CREON: Her? Don't even mention her-- she no longer exists.ISMENE: What? You'd kill your own son's bride?CREON: Absolutely: there are other fields for him to plow.”

“I have no love for a friend who loves in words alone.”

“Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.”

“So here I am, against my will and yours too, well I know-- no one wants the man who brings bad news.”

“Only a fool could be in love with death.”

“I will suffer nothing as great as death without glory.”

“Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you.All men make mistakes, it is only human.But once the wrong is done, a mancan turn his back on folly, misfortune too,if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen,and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornnessbrands you for stupidity - pride is a crime.”

“I didn't say yes. I can say no to anything I say vile, and I don't have to count the cost. But because you said yes, all that you can do, for all your crown and your trappings, and your guards—all that your can do is to have me killed.”

“There is no greater evil than men's failure to consult and to consider.”

“Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.”

“To the man who is afraid everything rustles.”

“A sight to touch e’en hatred’s self with pity.”

“(...) I, for one, prize lessThe name of king than deeds of kingly power;And so would all who learn in wisdom’s school.”

“For Time calls only once, and that determines all.”

“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.”

“Reason is God's crowning gift to man, and you are rightTo warn me against losing mine. I cannot say—I hope that I shall never want to say!— that youHave reasoned badly. Yet there are other menWho can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful.You are not in a position to know everythingThat people say or do, or what they feel:Your temper terrifies them—everyoneWill tell you only what you like to hear.”

“Your edict, King, was strong,But all your strength is weakness itself againstThe immortal unrecorded laws of God.They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.I knew I must die, even without your decree:I am only mortal. And if I must dieNow, before it is my time to die,Surely this is no hardship: can anyoneLiving, as I live, with evil all about me,Think Death less than a friend?”

“How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!”

“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.”

“There is no happiness where there is no wisdom...”

“It is not right if I am wrong. But if I am young, and right, what does my age matter?”

“Reason is God's crowning gift to a man...”

“It is my nature to join in love, not hate.”

“Numberless are the world's wonders”

“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.”

“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.”

“JOCASTA:So clear in this case were the oracles,so clear and false. Give them no heed, I say;what God discovers need of, easilyhe shows to us himself.”

“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.”

“TEIRESIAS:You have your eyes but see not where you arein sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with.Do you know who your parents are? Unknowingyou are enemy to kith and kinin death, beneath the earth, and in this life.”

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

“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.”

“Give me a life wherever there is an opportunity to live, and better life than was my father's.”

“Invited, not inflicted; of all wounds, those that seem willful are the worst to bear.”

“The good leader repeats the good news, keeps the worst to himself.”

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

“Always desire to learn something useful.”

“Leave me to my own absurdity.”