Sophocles: Man

Sophocles was ancient Greek tragedian. Explore interesting quotes on man.
Sophocles: 136 quotes8 likes

“Numberless are the world's wonders, but none
More wonderful than man.”

Sophocles

Variant translation: There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man.
Source: Antigone, Line 333 (Ode I)

“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.”

Sophocles

Variant: Look upon him, O my Thebans, on your king, the child of fame!<br>This mighty man, this Œdipus the lore far-famed could guess,<br>And envy from each Theban won, so great his lordliness—<br>Lo to what a surge of sorrow and confusion hath he come!<br>Let us call no mortal happy till our eyes have seen the doom<br>And the death-day come upon him—till, unharassed by mischance,<br>He pass the bound of mortal life, the goal of ordinance.<br>[ Tr. E. D. A. Morshead http://books.google.com/books?id=i7wXAAAAYAAJ (1885)] <br class="br">Variant: People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus.<br>He solved the famous riddle, with his brilliance,<br>he rose to power, a man beyond all power.<br>Who could behold his greatness without envy?<br>Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him.<br>Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day,<br>count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.<br>[quoted by Thomas Cahill in Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea] <br class="br">Source: Oedipus Rex, Line 1529, Choragos.

“Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best; but when a man has seen the light of day, this is next best by far, that with utmost speed he should go back from where he came.”

Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus

Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1225; English translation by Sir Richard Jebb

“Love, unconquerable,
Waster of rich men, keeper
Of warm lights and all-night vigil
In the soft face of a girl:
Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!
Even the pure immortals cannot escape you,
And mortal man, in his one day's dusk,
Trembles before your glory.”

Sophocles

Source: Antigone, Line 781 (Ode III)

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

Sophocles

Source: Antigone, Lines 620-3

“All men are liable to err.
But when an error is made, that man is no longer
unwise or unblessed who heals the evil
into which he has fallen and does not remain stubborn.”

Sophocles

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

“I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; my rising and my falling match with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no other man than that I am.”

Sophocles

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?

“No man loves life like him that's growing old.”

Sophocles

Acrisius, fragment 64.

“There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.”

Sophocles

Trachiniæ, 1.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.”

Sophocles

Source: Antigone, Line 277; cf. "Don’t shoot the messenger."

“I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare — I have no use for him, either.”

Sophocles

Source: Antigone, Line 181

“Show me the man who keeps his house in hand,
He's fit for public authority.”

Sophocles

Source: Antigone, Line 660

“"How about your service of Aphrodite, Sophocles—is your natural force still unabated?" And he replied, 'Hush, man, most gladly have I escaped this thing you talk of, as if I had run away from a raging and savage beast of a master."”

Sophocles

Plato, Republic, 1.329c. Translated by Paul Shorey.

“Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day.”

Sophocles

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.