Sophocles Quotes

A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist

My nails are broken, my fingers are bleeding, my arms are covered with the welts left by the paws of your guards — but I am a queen!

No yield to the dead! Never stab the fighter when he's down. Where's the glory, killing the dead twice over?

Yet I pity the poor wretch, though he's my enemy. He's yoked to an evil delusion, but the same fate could be mine. I see clearly: we who live are all phantoms, fleeing shadows.

Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.

(...) I, for one, prize less
The name of king than deeds of kingly power;
And so would all who learn in wisdom’s school.

All things the long and countless years first draw from darkness, then bury from light; and there is nothing for which man may not look. The dreaded oath is vanquished, and the stubborn will.

I am at the end. I exist no more.

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.

Of all vile things current on earth, none is so vile as money.

Unnatural silence signifies no good.

ἀλλ᾽ ἢ καλῶς ζῆν ἢ καλῶς τεθνηκέναι
τὸν εὐγενῆ χρή

True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills

Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.

he came to know the god intimately and the strange mad flower of his mind dripped in the dark