Quotes by Sophocles

• Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.
• 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.
• Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.
• Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.
• Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.
• Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.
• Reason is God's crowning gift to man.
• Silence is an ornament for women.
• Success is dependent on effort.
• The dice of Zeus always fall luckily.
• The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest.
• The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
• The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.
• One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.
• Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.
• The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water.
• No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.
• 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.
• Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.
• Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.
• No enemy is worse than bad advice.
• There is a point at which even justice does injury.
• No man loves the bearer of bad tidings.
• No one longs to live more than someone growing old.
• No lie ever reaches old age.
• No speech can stain what is noble by nature.
• One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.
• Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed.
• Not even Ares battles against necessity.
• Not even old age knows how to love death.
• Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.
• Not to be born is, past all prizing, best.
• Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.
• Old age and the passage of time teach all things.
• No one who errs unwillingly is evil.
• Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
• To him who is in fear everything rustles.
• Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool.
• Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.
• Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain?
• Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.
• Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere.
• When trouble ends even troubles please.
• Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.
• When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.
• Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
• Wise thinkers prevail everywhere.
• Without labor nothing prospers.
• You should not consider a man's age but his acts.
• You win the victory when you yield to friends.
• He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.
• Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.
• Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.
• Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.
• 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.
• There is no greater evil than anarchy.
• There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?
• There is no success without hardship.
• There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
• Who seeks shall find.
• There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries.
• There is a time when even justice brings harm.
• Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.
• Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.
• To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task.
• To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it.
• To live without evil belongs only to the gods.
• War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.
• What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman's excellence?
• Even a poor man can receive honors.
• For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.
• But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.
• 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.
• Children are the anchors of a mother's life.
• Despair often breeds disease.
• Best to live lightly, unthinkingly.
• Enemies' gifts are no gifts and do no good.
• Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven.
• Evil counsel travels fast.
• Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness.
• For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.
• For shameful deeds are taught by shameful deeds.
• For the dead there are no more toils.
• For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.
• Don't you know that silence supports the accuser's charge?
• A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.
• A day lays low and lifts up again all human things.
• A fearful man is always hearing things.
• A human being is only breath and shadow.
• A lie never lives to be old.
• A man growing old becomes a child again.
• A short saying often contains much wisdom.
• Better not to exist than live basely.
• A state is not a state if it belongs to one man.
• Evil gains work their punishment.
• A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.
• A word does not frighten the man who, in acting, feels no fear.
• Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.
• All a man's affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.
• All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit.
• Always desire to learn something useful.
• A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.
• It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.
• If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.
• Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.
• In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.
• Isn't it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies?
• Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.
• It is best to live however one can be.
• If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.
• It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.
• 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.
• It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.
• It's a terrible thing to speak well and be wrong.
• It's impossible to speak what it is not noble to do.
• Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness.
• Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected.
• Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always.
• Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.
• Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near.
• Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.
• It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.
• God's dice always have a lucky roll.
• If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: "Thou shalt not ration justice."
• Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
• Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.
• How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth.
• How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.
• 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.
• I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.
• I see the state of all of us who live, nothing more than phantoms or a weightless shadow.
• I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.
• I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.
• 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.
• If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.
• If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too.
• Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.