Sophocles Quotes

It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong.

Evil sometimes seems good To a man whose mind A god leads to destruction.

It's little I ask, and get still less, but quite enough for me.

Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.

ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could’st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother’s son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly’s not acquit.

If you are out of trouble, watch for danger.

The weak can defeat the strong in a case as just as mine.

War loves to seek its victims in the young.

For if any man thinks that he is alone is wise — that in speech, or in mind, he hath no peer — such a soul, when laid open, is ever found empty.

My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they're popular; you make them because they're right

I was born to share love, not hate”, said Antigone. “Go then, and share your love for the dead”, responds Creon.

Best of children, sisters arm-in-arm, we must bear what the gods give us to bear — don't fire up your hearts with so much grief. No reason to blame the pass you've come to now.

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

Numberless are the world's wonders, but none
More wonderful than man; the storm gray sea
Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high;
Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven
With shining furrows where his plows have gone
Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions.

The light-boned birds and beasts that cling to cover,
The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water,
All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind;
The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned,
Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken
The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull.

Words also, and thought as rapid as air,
He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his
And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow,
The spears of winter rain: from every wind
He has made himself secure — from all but one:
In the late wind of death he cannot stand.

O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure!
O fate of man, working both good and evil!
When the laws are kept, how proudly his city stands!
When the laws are broken, what of his city then?
Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth,
Never be it said that my thoughts are his thoughts.

Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.