“Time, waxing old, doth all things purify.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, line 286 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Aeschylus:
119
quotes
10
likes
Aeschylus Quotes
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 598–602 (tr. Christopher Collard)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1327–1329 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evil.”
Source: The Suppliants, line 453; comparable to "where ignorance is bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise", Thomas Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, stanza 10
“Memory, Muse-mother, doer of all things.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 461 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
“For where might and justice are yoke-fellows—
What pair is stronger than this?”
Fragment 209 https://archive.org/stream/aeschyluswitheng02aescuoft#page/496/mode/2up
“Sole cure of wrong is silence.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 548 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“The default
Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep,
One, cast aright, may stablish house and home.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 750–751 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“Thou are a better counsellor to others
Than to thyself: I judge by deeds not words.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 335–336 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
Fragment 63 (trans. by E. H. Plumptre), reported in Theoi http://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusFragments2.html
“What's determined
Bear, as I can, I must, knowing the might
Of strong Necessity is unconquerable.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 103–105 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“He has the wisdom of an old man, but his body is at its prime”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 622 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“And she who, like a swan,
Has chanted out her last and dying song,
Lies, loved by him.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1444–1446 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.”
Anaxagoras, frg. B 21a
Misattributed
“He or silence keeps or speaks in season.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 619 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“Only when man's life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man happy.”
Call no man happy till he is dead.
Also attributed to Sophocles in "Oedipus The King".
Hold him alone truly fortunate who has ended his life in happy well-being.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 928–929. Variant translations:
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 1009–1010 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1388–1392 (tr. Ian Johnston)
“For stubborness, if one be in the wrong,
Is in itself weaker than naught at all.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 1012–1013 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“Prolific truly is the impious deed;
Like to the evil stock, the evil seed.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 758–760 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“What is pleasanter than the tie of host and guest?”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), The Libation Bearers, line 702
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 200–201 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“The walls of Athens are impregnable,
Their firmest bulwarks her heroic sons.”
Source: The Persians (472 BC), line 349 (tr. Robert Potter)
“Obedience mother is of good success,
Sure pledge of safety.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 224–225 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 550–552 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“But when the dust has drawn up the blood of a man, once he is dead, there is no return to life.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 647–648 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.”
Variant translation: Death is softer by far than tyranny.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1364
“Through want of heart fear seizes on my tongue.”
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), line 259 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.”
Fragment 383, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Since it most profits that the truly wise
Should seem not wise at all.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 385 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 168–169 (tr. Christopher Collard)
“In war, truth is the first casualty.”
This is often attributed to U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, but does not appear anywhere in his speeches. Arthur Ponsonby#Falsehood in Wartime (1928) quoted: "When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty", but the first recorded use seems to be by Philip Snowden in his introduction to Truth and the War, by E. D. Morel. London, July 1916: "'Truth,' it has been said, 'is the first casualty of war.'" Samuel Johnson#The Idler (1758–1760) expressed a similar idea: "Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."
Misattributed
“None of their own will choose a bond-slave's life.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 953 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“Bitter, being first to tell you bitter news.”
Source: The Persians (472 BC), line 253 (tr. Janet Lembke and C. J. Herington)
“It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.”
Fragment 385, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Eumenides, lines 312–320 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)
“True marriage is the union that mates
Equal with equal.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, line 890 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 397–399 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
“When we know clearly, then should we discuss:
To guess is one thing, and to know another.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 1368–1369 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
“She [Helen] brought to Ilium her dowry, destruction.”
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 406
“Easy, whoever out of trouble holds his
Foot, to admonish and remind those faring
Ill.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 263–265 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)
“If I grieve,
I do not therefore wish to multiply
The griefs of others.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 345–346 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“Be boastful and be bold, like cock beside his partner.”
Kόμπασον θαρσῶν, ἀλέκτωρ ὥστε θηλείας πέλας.
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 1671 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
“God’s best gift Is a mind free from folly”
Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 ( Google Books https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tuRiOESBVjkC)
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
“Glances whose gentle fire Bestowed both wound and balm;”
Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 ( Google Books https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tuRiOESBVjkC)
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon
