Sophocles Quotes

143 Sourced Quotes

One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.

Sophocles
Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him...

Sophocles
It is a good thing
To escape from death, but it is not great pleasure
To bring death to a friend.

Sophocles
Many are the things that man seeing must understand. Not seeing, how shall he know what lies in the hand of time to come?

Sophocles
More men come to doom through dirty profits than are kept by them.

Sophocles
Ah, race of mortal men, How as a thing of nought I count ye, though ye live; For who is there of men That more of blessing knows, Than just a little while To seem to prosper well, And, having seemed, to fall?

Sophocles
Now let the weeping cease; Let no one mourn again. These things are in the hands of God.

Sophocles
One must obey the man whom the city sets up in power in small things and in justice and in its opposite.

Sophocles
It is best to live anyhow, as one may; do not be afraid of marriage with your mother! Many have lain with their mothers in dreams too. It is he to whom such things are nothing who puts up with life best.

Sophocles
And if my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly.

Sophocles
Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

Sophocles
Nay, if these measures give any ground of confidence, we think that thy design is not amiss.

Sophocles
Of no mortal say, 'That man is happy,' till vexed by no grievous ill he pass Life's goal.

Sophocles
I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; my rising and my falling match with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no
other man than that I am.

Sophocles
It can be no dishonor to learn from others when they speak good sense.

Sophocles
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
It's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.

Sophocles
There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.

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

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

Sophocles
Our ship of fate, which recent storms have threatened to destroy, has come safely to harbor at last.

Sophocles
If you try to cure evil with evil
you will add more pain to your fate.

Sophocles
Love, unconquerable,
Waster of rich men, keeper
Of warm lights and all-night vigil
In the soft face of a girl:
Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!
Even the pure immortals cannot escape you,
And mortal man, in his one day's dusk,
Trembles before your glory.

Sophocles
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

Sophocles
I, whom proof hath taught of late How so far only should we hate our foes As though we soon might love them, and so far Do a friend service as to one most like Someday to prove our foe, since oftenest men In friendship but a faithless haven find.

Sophocles
Whoever has a keen eye for profits, is blind in relation to his craft.

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

Sophocles
Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.

Sophocles
Ships are only hulls, high walls are nothing, When no life moves in the empty passageways.

Sophocles
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.

Sophocles