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Sophocles Quotes

497 BC–405 BC Greece

Sophocles (Greek: Σοφοκλῆς; c. 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides.

Greece
Playwrights
Poets
Politicians

Also known as: Antigone, Oedipus rex

Random Sophocles quote

181 quotes

Alas, how dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!

Truly, to tell lies is not honorable;
But when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
To speak dishonorably is pardonable.

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

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

What man soe'er, in troubles waxing wroth,
Applies a charm that goes beyond the ill,
Is no physician skilled to deal with grief.

It needs must be
That one who prospers should receive good words.

Not in words so much as deeds would I make the lustre of my life.

Thus to prate
With one of mind diseased is hardly wise.

To me so deep a silence portends some dread event; a clamorous sorrow wastes itself in sound.

Ignorant men
Don't know what good they hold in their hands until
They've flung it away.

Many the forms of life,
Wondrous and strange to see,
But nought than man appears
More wondrous and more strange.

Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.

Those who lose such friends lose them to their joy,
And they who have them for deliverance pray.

Some pleasure is there found even in words,
When with them comes forgetfulness of ills.

They that fare ill become not only deaf,
But even though they gaze they see not clear
What lies before them.

For those who fare but ill 'tis very sweet
E'en for a moment to forget their ills.

In some things be not anxious to inquire:
Far better is it oft to leave them hid.

There liveth one who gives the present hour
Its fill of pleasure, creeping blindly on
To future which he knows not.

Know'st thou not
That silence but admits the accuser's charge?

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Sophocles (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.