Memorable Quotes and quotations from Sophocles

Sophocles Greek tragic dramatist (496 BC - 406 BC)


Sophocles -
- Who feels no ills, should, therefore, fear them; and when fortune smiles, be doubly cautious, lest destruction come remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.

Sophocles - Acrisius
- To him who is in fear everything rustles.

Sophocles -
- What you cannot enforce, do not command.

Sophocles - Trachiniae
- A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers would one day suffer reverse.

Sophocles - Antigone
- There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.

Sophocles - Tiresias. Oedipus the King 315
- How terrible it is to have wisdom when it does not benefit those who have it.

Sophocles -
- One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
- One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.

Sophocles -
- A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles - Electra
- Death is not the worst; rather, in vain
To wish for death, and not to compass it.

Sophocles - Antigone
- How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!

Sophocles - Oedpius Rex
- O generations of men, how I count you as equal with those who live not at all!

Sophocles - Antigone
- Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
- The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.

Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
- Stranger in a strange country.

Sophocles - Ajax
- Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good
That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.

Sophocles - Electra
- Death is not the worst thing; rather, when one who craves death cannot attain even that wish.

Sophocles - Antigone
- For God hates utterly
The bray of bragging tongues.

Sophocles - Antigone
- Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.

Sophocles - Trachiniae
- Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.

Sophocles - Antigone
- The ideal condition
Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct;
But since we are all likely to go astray,
The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
- The good befriend themselves.

Sophocles - Creusa
- Truly, to tell lies is not honorable;
but when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
To speak dishonorably is pardonable.

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

Sophocles - Ajax
- It is not righteousness to outrage
A brave man dead, not even though you hate him.

Sophocles - Antigone
- I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him either.

Sophocles - Trachiniae
- Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past.

Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
- It made our hair stand up in panic fear.

Sophocles - Electra (c.409 BC)
- The end excuses any evil.

Sophocles - Antigone
- Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

Sophocles -
- To revive sorrow is cruel.

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

Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
- Time eases all things.