If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.
¶ Ajax, l. 11
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Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.
¶ Ajax, l. 362
A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.
¶ Ajax, l. 581.
Ignorant men
Don’t know what good they hold in their hands until
They’ve flung it away.
¶ Ajax, l. 964 [Tecmessa]
trans. John Moore (1959).
Alt trans. by George Young (1888): “Men of perverse opinion do not know / The excellence of what is in their hands, / Till some one dash it from them.”
Alt trans.: "Men of ill judgement oft ignore the good / That lies within their hands, till they have lost it."
Alt trans.: "For those who are base in judgement do not know the good they hold in their hands until they cast it off."
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.
¶ Antigone
No other touchstone can test the heart of a man, the temper of his mind and spirit, till he be tried in the practice of authority and rule.
¶ Antigone [Creon]
I well believe it, to unwilling ears;
None love the messenger who brings bad news.
¶ Antigone, l. 276-277 [Sentry to Creon]
alt. trans:
- "No man loves the bearer of bad tidings."
- "Nobody likes the man who brings bad news."
Think not that thy word and thine alone must be right.
¶ Antigone, l. 706
But the power of destiny is something awesome; neither wealth, nor Ares, nor a tower, nor dark-hulled ships might escape it.
¶ Antigone, l. 951
Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.
¶ Electra, l. 1007
Alt. trans.: "For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that."
Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.
¶ Electra, l. 177
Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.
¶ Hipponous, frag. 280
Alt. trans.: "Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all." (Cited as "Fragments, l. 284 (Hipponoos)")
It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.
¶ Oedipus Colonus, l. 1143
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
¶ Oedipus Rex, l. 1231
Alt. trans. "The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves."
Let every man in mankind's frailty
Consider his last day; and let none
Presume on his good fortune until he find
Life, at his death, a memory without pain.
¶ Oedipus Rex, l. 1529 (concluding words)
Young translation:
And of no moral say
"That man is happy," till
Vexed by no grievous ill
He pass Life's goal.
One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.
¶ Oedipus at Colonus, l. 1616
The truth is always the strongest argument.
¶ Phaedra, frag. 737
Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.
¶ Phaedra, fragment 842
Also "Fortune never helps the fainthearted" (Fragments, l. 666)
I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.
¶ Philoctetes, l. 94
Don’t you know that silence supports the accuser’s charge?
¶ The Women of Trachis, l. 813.
Well one must learn
By doing the thing; for though you think you know it
You have no certainty, until you try.
¶ Trachiniae [First Lady]
Young translation.
A fearful man is always hearing things.
¶ Fragments, l. 58 (Acrisius)
Alt trans: "To the man who is afraid, everything rustles."
No one who errs unwillingly is evil.
¶ Fragments, l. 582 [Tyro]
It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.
¶ Fragments, l. 661.
If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.
¶ Fragments, l. 702
A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.
¶ Fragments, l. 88 (Aletes)
All a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.
¶ Fragments, l. 98.
No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.
¶ Fragments, l.671.
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