Aeschylus Quotes

“Wisdom comes alone through suffering.”

“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”

“Chorus: Let not thy love to man o'erleap the bounds
Of reason, nor neglect thy wretched state:
So my fond hope suggests thou shalt be free
From these base chains, nor less in power than Jove.
Prometheus: Not thus — it is not in the Fates that thus
These things should end; crush'd with a thousand wrongs,
A thousand woes, I shall escape these chains.
Necessity is stronger far than art.
Chorus: Who then is ruler of necessity?
Prometheus: The triple Fates and unforgetting Furies.
Chorus: Must Jove then yield to their superior power?
Prometheus: He no way shall escape his destined fate.
Chorus: What, but eternal empire, is his fate?
Prometheus: Thou mayst not know this now: forbear to inquire.
Chorus: Is it of moment what thou keep'st thus close?
Prometheus: No more of this discourse; it is not time
Now to disclose that which requires the seal
Of strictest secresy; by guarding which I shall escape the misery of these chains.”

This is usually attributed to Emiliano Zapata, but sometimes to Aeschylus, who is credited with expressing similar sentiments in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life".
Misattributed

“Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 510–524, as translated by R. Potter (1860)

“Zeus, who guided mortals to be wise,
has established his fixed law—
wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
so men against their will
learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods
seated on their solemn thrones—
such grace is harsh and violent.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, line 378; compare: "Apt words have power to suage / The tumours of a troubl'd mind", John Milton, Samson Agonistes.

“Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,
Nor that which bows unto a tyrant's sway.
Know that the middle way
Is dearest unto God, and they, thereon who wend,
They shall achieve the end.”

Variant translations: Zeus has led us on to know, the Helmsman lays it down as law that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again, and we resist, but ripeness comes as well. From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench there comes a violent love. Robert Fagles, The Oresteia (1975) God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way (1930), pp. 61 and 194 ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=D3QwvF3GWOkC&lpg=PA61&ots=BacvHvGm6e&dq=%22And%20in%20our%20own%20despite%2C%20against%20our%20will%2C%20Comes%20wisdom%22%20-kennedy&pg=PA194#v=onepage&q=%22our%20own%20despite%22&f=false) Robert F. Kennedy quoted these lines in his speech announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968. His version http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html: Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. Variant translations of πάθει μάθος: By suffering comes wisdom. The reward of suffering is experience. Wisdom comes alone through suffering. Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 176–183, as translated by Ian Johnston ( Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=qz1HpBZ1fTwC&lpg=PA13&ots=C7aohrZRF1&dq=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep%2C&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=Drips%20in%20our%20hearts%20as%20we%20try%20to%20sleep,&f=false)

Aeschylus Quotes about God

“God's mouth knows not how to speak falsehood, but he brings to pass every word.”

Guard well and reverence that form of government Which will eschew alike licence and slavery; Guard well and reverence that form of government Which will eschew alike licence and slavery; And from your polity do not wholly banish fear. For what man living, freed from fear, will still be just? Hold fast such upright fear of the law’s sanctity, Source: Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 ( Google Books https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tuRiOESBVjkC) source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 526–530 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead) Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Aeschylus / Quotes / Oresteia (458 BC) / Eumenides

“Learn to know thy heart,
And, as the times, so let thy manners change,
For by the law of change a new God rules.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 1032–1033

“True, but the strength of god is mightier still,
And oft, in direst strait,
It lifteth from the lowest depths of ill
Him who, with cloud-veiled eyes, was desperate.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 309–310 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

“I pray the gods will give me some relief
And end this weary job. One long full year
I've been lying here, on this rooftop,
The palace of the sons of Atreus,
Resting on my arms, just like a dog.
I've come to know the night sky, every star,
The powers we see glittering in the sky,
Bringing winter and summer to us all,
As the constellations rise and sink.”

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 226–229 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“Good fortune is a god among men, and more than a god.”

opening lines
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon

“And corpses, piled up like sand, shall witness,
Mute, even to the century to come,
Before the eyes of men, that never, being
Mortal, ought we cast our thoughts too high.”

Variant translation: Success is man's god.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 59

Aeschylus Quotes about men

Aeschylus The Persians

Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 818–820 (tr. S. G. Benardete)

“The show of weeping and of ruth
To the forlorn will all men pay,
But of the grief their eyes display,
Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.
And, with the joyous, they beguile
Their lips unto a feigned smile.”

“For love unlovely, when its evil spell
'Mong brutes or men the feebler sex befools,
Conjugial bands o'errules.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 790–794 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“I hold my own mind and think apart from other men.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, lines 600–601 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 757

“Old men are always young enough to learn.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 832–833

“Do not kick against the pricks.”

Variant translation: Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old. Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 584 ( line 583 of Richmond Lattimore's translation http://books.google.com/books?id=3duN7nP3OQYC&q=%22old+men+are+always+young+enough+to+learn%22&pg=PA40#v=onepage)

Aeschylus: Trending quotes

“On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1624

“Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, line 1089
Context: On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.

“Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 103

Aeschylus Quotes

“Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
Thou shalt not kick against the pricks.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 328–329 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)

“The will of Zeus,
The hand of his Hephæstus.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 322–323 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

“The guardian of poor suffering mankind.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, line 619 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

“Arrogance in full bloom bears a crop of ruinous folly from which it reaps a harvest all of tears.”

Source: The Suppliants, lines 382–383 (tr. Christopher Collard)

Aeschylus The Persians

Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 821–822 (tr. Christopher Collard)

“Chorus of Furies: Living, you will be my feast, not slain at an altar”

“Thou shalt learn,
Late though it be, the lesson to be wise.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 305 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

“Repute of justice, not just act, thou wishest.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1425 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

“I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 430 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.”

trans. https://archive.org/stream/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp/agamemnonofaesch015545mbp#page/n38/mode/1up Gilbert Murray Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon

“Innumerable twinkling of the waves of the sea.”

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 592; compare: esse quam videri.

“For none is free but Zeus.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, line 89

“May Morning, as the proverb runs, appear
Bearing glad tidings from his mother Night!”

Source: Prometheus Bound, line 50 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)

“Children are memory's voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 264–265 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

“I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, lines 505–506 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 432 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“Quickly, with rapid steps, too credulous,
The limit which a woman sets to trust
Advances evermore; And with swift doom of death
A rumour spread by woman perishes.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1343

“New-made kings are cruel.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 485–487 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

“When a tongue at the wrong moment shoots off sharp-pointed words to rouse and hurt the spirit, speech may well soothe speech.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, line 35 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

“Mankind's troubles flicker about, and you'll nowhere see misery fly on the same wings.”

Source: The Suppliants, lines 446–447 (tr. Christopher Collard)

“To me, long disciplined in woe, are known
Divers lustrations; when to speak I know,
When to be silent.”

Source: The Suppliants, lines 328–329 (tr. Christopher Collard)

“Gain upon gain, and interest to boot!”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 276–278 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,
And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.”

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 437 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

“No boaster he,
But with a hand which sees the thing to do.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 322–323 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“But when a man
speeds toward his own ruin,
a god gives him help.”

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 554 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

Aeschylus The Persians

Source: The Persians (472 BC), line 742 (tr. Janet Lembke and C. J. Herington)

“A speech well-mouthed
In th' utterance, and full-minded in the sense,
As doth befit a servant of the gods!”

“The man who does ill, ill must suffer too.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 953–954 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

“For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer.”

Fragment 267 https://books.google.com/books?id=OxlHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA233&dq=%22The+man+who+does+ill,+ill+must+suffer+too.%22 (trans. by Plumptre)

“God on high
Looks graciously on him whom triumph's hour
Has made not pitiless.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 312

“Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:
Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured
Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed
By hymns of praise. From him alone of all
The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 951–952 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“If any one bear evil, let it be
Without disgrace, sole profit to the dead;
On base and evil deeds no glory waits.”

Fragment 146 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“In every enterprise is no greater evil than bad companionship”

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 683–685 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,
To others, nought remember nor discern.”

ἐν παντὶ πράγει δ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁμιλίας κακῆς
κάκιον οὐδέν
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 599–600 (tr. David Grene)

“The field of Sin
Brings forth the fruits of Death.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 38–39 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“Time waxing old can many a lesson teach.”

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 601 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

“Bronze is the mirror of the form; wine, of the heart.”

Variant translations:
Time brings all things to pass.
Time as he grows old teaches all things.
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 981 (tr. E. H. Plumptre).

“But as he willed 'tis ordered all,
And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall—
Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine
Poured forth too late, the wrath divine
Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.”

Fragment 384, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Too true it is! our mortal state
With bliss is never satiate.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 68–71 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“The jealous poison, lodged within the heart,
Tortures with twofold pang whom it infects;
By his own griefs oppressed, the envious man
Groans also to behold another's joy.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1331–1332 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“Dangerous is a people's voice charged with wrath.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 834–837

“While from inward health doth flow,
Beloved of all, true bliss which mortals seek.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 456 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

“Life envy-free is life unenviable.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 535–537 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“Since to open out
And mourn out grief, where it is possible
To draw a tear from the audience, is a work
That pays its own price well.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 939 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.”

Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 637–639 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

“For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.”

κρεῖσσον γὰρ εἰσάπαξ θανεῖν
ἢ τὰς ἁπάσας ἡμέρας πάσχειν κακῶς.
Variant translation by John Stuart Blackie (1850):
"Life and life's sorrows? Once to die is better
Than thus to drag sick life."
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 750–751

“Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?”

Variant translation: In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end
This poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 224–225

“"Reverence for parents" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1485

“For Hades, ruler of the nether sphere,
Exactest auditor of human kind,
Graved on the tablet of his mind
Doth every trespass read.”

Source: The Suppliants, line 707; alternately reported with "Honour thy father and thy mother" in place of "Reverence for parents", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,
To come to me: of cureless ills thou art
The one physician. Pain lays not its touch
Upon a corpse.”

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 273–275 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

“But ancient Arrogance, or soon or late,
When strikes the hour ordained by Fate,
Breedeth new Arrogance, which still
Revels, wild wantoner in human ill.”

Fragment 250 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)