Sophocles Quotes

143 Sourced Quotes

Troubles hurt the most when they prove self-inflicted.

Sophocles
If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles.

Sophocles
From suffering that has been/ Decreed no man will ever find escape

Sophocles
Nobly to live, or else nobly to die,
Befits proud birth.

Sophocles
It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

Sophocles
You are blind in your ears and mind, as well as your eyes.
Oedipus to Tiresias

Sophocles
So do not fear this marriage with your mother;
Many a man has suffered this before—
But only in his dreams.

Sophocles
It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.

Sophocles
Show me the man who keeps his house in hand,
He's fit for public authority.

Sophocles
For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams.

Sophocles
But it is a pleasant thing to get the prize of victory; be daring—in time we shall be shown to have been in the right.

Sophocles
They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me.

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

Sophocles
Anarchy, anarchy! Show me a greater evil!
This is why cities tumble and the great houses rain down,
This is what scatters armies!

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

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
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
No man loves life like him that's growing old.

Sophocles
Look upon Oedipus
This is the king who solved the famous riddle [of the Sphinx].

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

Sophocles
I see
that everywhere among the race of men
it is the tongue that wins and not the deed.

Sophocles