“Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.”
Electra, 1007.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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Famous Sophocles Quotes
“Numberless are the world's wonders, but none
More wonderful than man.”
Variant translation: There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man.
Source: Antigone, Line 333 (Ode I)
Sophocles Quotes about men
Source: Antigone, Line 1347, closing lines
τοῖς πᾶσι κοινόν ἐστι τοὐξαμαρτάνειν:
ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἁμάρτῃ, κεῖνος οὐκέτ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἀνὴρ
ἄβουλος οὐδ᾽ ἄνολβος, ὅστις ἐς κακὸν
πεσὼν ἀκῆται μηδ᾽ ἀκίνητος πέλῃ.
Source: Antigone, Lines 1024-1027; cf. Book of Proverbs 28:13
Source: Antigone, Lines 295-303
Sophocles Quotes about love
“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1616–18
“War loves to seek its victims in the young.”
Scyrii, Frag. 507.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Sophocles: Trending quotes
Scyrii, Frag. 510.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“For God hates utterly
The bray of bragging tongues.”
Source: Antigone, Line 123
“A wise player ought to accept his throws and score them, not bewail his luck.”
Fragment 947.
Phædra
Source: Pearson, A.C. (1917). The Fragments of Sophocles (with additional notes from the papers of Sir R.C. Jebb and W.G. Headlam). Vol. 3. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917. Retrieved on 2017-01-06 from https://archive.org/details/fragmentseditedw03sophuoft.
Sophocles Quotes
“The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.”
Source: Oedipus Rex, Line 1184, Second Messenger; one commonly quoted translation is, "The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities".
“Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.”
Fragment 288. (Plumptre's translation, as cited in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 1906)
Variant: Heaven never helps the man who will not act.
Variant: Look upon him, O my Thebans, on your king, the child of fame!
This mighty man, this Œdipus the lore far-famed could guess,
And envy from each Theban won, so great his lordliness—
Lo to what a surge of sorrow and confusion hath he come!
Let us call no mortal happy till our eyes have seen the doom
And the death-day come upon him—till, unharassed by mischance,
He pass the bound of mortal life, the goal of ordinance.
[ Tr. E. D. A. Morshead http://books.google.com/books?id=i7wXAAAAYAAJ (1885)]
Variant: People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus.
He solved the famous riddle, with his brilliance,
he rose to power, a man beyond all power.
Who could behold his greatness without envy?
Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him.
Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day,
count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.
[quoted by Thomas Cahill in Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea]
Source: Oedipus Rex, Line 1529, Choragos.
“Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.”
Hipponous, fragment 280.
“It is a good thing
To escape from death, but it is not great pleasure
To bring death to a friend.”
Source: Antigone, Line 437
Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1225; English translation by Sir Richard Jebb
“Evil sometimes seems good
To a man whose mind
A god leads to destruction.”
Source: Antigone, Lines 620-3
“Nobly to live, or else nobly to die,
Befits proud birth.”
ἀλλ᾽ ἢ καλῶς ζῆν ἢ καλῶς τεθνηκέναι
τὸν εὐγενῆ χρή
Source: Ajax, Lines 479-480
“Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.”
Source: Antigone, Line 295
“Think not that your word and yours alone must be right.”
Source: Antigone, Line 706
χάρις χάριν γάρ ἐστιν ἡ τίκτουσ᾽ ἀεί
ὅτου δ᾽ ἀπορρεῖ μνῆστις εὖ πεπονθότος,
οὐκ ἂν γένοιτ᾽ ἔθ᾽ οὗτος εὐγενὴς ἀνήρ.
Source: Ajax, Lines 522-524
“If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles.”
Vit. Anon, page 64 (Plumptre's Trans.).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Oedipus (Line 1079?).
Oedipus Rex
Variant: I am Fortune's child,
Not man's; her mother face hath ever smiled
Above me, and my brethren of the sky,
The changing Moons, have changed me low and high.
There is my lineage true, which none shall wrest
From me; who then am I to fear this quest?
“Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.”
Source: Trachiniae, Line 592–593.
“How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be
When there's no help in truth!”
Variant: Wisdom is a curse when wisdom does nothing for the man who has it.
Source: Oedipus Rex, Line 316.
“A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse.”
Source: Trachiniae, Line 296.
Ὦ παῖ, γένοιο πατρὸς εὐτυχέστερος,
τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ὅμοιος: καὶ γένοι᾽ ἂν οὐ κακός
Ajax, lines 550-551; English translation by Richard Jebb
Ajax
Achilles' Loves, only surviving fragment, often quoted as "Love is like ice in the hands of children".
“I will never reveal my dreadful secrets, or rather, yours.”
Teiresias (Line 332?).
Oedipus Rex
Variant: I will not wound myself nor thee. Why seek
To trap and question me? I will not speak.
Variant: Nay, I see that thou, on thy part, openest not thy lips in season: therefore I speak not, that neither may I have thy mishap.
“In a just cause the weak o'ercome the strong.”
Œdipus Coloneus, 880.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Trachiniæ, 1.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.”
Source: Antigone, Line 277; cf. "Don’t shoot the messenger."
Source: Antigone, Line 181
“Children are the anchors of a mother's life.”
Fragment 685.
Phædra
“Show me the man who keeps his house in hand,
He's fit for public authority.”
Source: Antigone, Line 660
Plato, Republic, 1.329c. Translated by Paul Shorey.
Jocasta (Line 977?).
Oedipus Rex
Variant: Nay, what should mortal fear, for whom the decrees of fortune are supreme and who hath clear foresight of nothing? 'Tis best to live at random, as one may.
Source: Antigone, Line 163
“It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.”
Peleus, Frag. 445.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,
How can it be but death shall bring him gain?”
ὅστις γὰρ ἐν πολλοῖσιν ὡς ἐγὼ κακοῖς
ζῇ, πῶς ὅδ᾽ οὐχὶ κατθανὼν κέρδος φέρει
Source: Antigone, Line 463-464; Plumptre translation https://archive.org/stream/b24865898#page/444/mode/2up
“Happy are they who know not the taste of evil.”
Source: Antigone, Line 583 (Ode II)
