Interesting Quotes by Sophocles With Free Shareable Pictures

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Time eases all things.

A mind at peace does not engender wars.

A fearful man is always hearing things.

No man loves the bearer of bad tidings.

Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.

Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.

You win the victory when you yield to friends.

Even a poor man can receive honors.

War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.

To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task.

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

Always desire to learn something useful.

It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong.

For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.

Gentle time will heal our sorrows.

It is always fair sailing, when you escape evil.

If they are just, they are better than clever.

The curse of ignorance is that man without being good or evil is nevertheless satisfied with himself.

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

How terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the man that's wise.

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price.

A man who deals in fairness with his own, he can make manifest justice in the state.

Men of ill-judgment oft ignore the good that lies within their hands, til they have lost it.

Nothing prospers without effort.

Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man.

Every wind is fare when we are flying from misfortune.

One must learn by doing the thing. For though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.

Sons are the anchors of a mother's life.

The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.

False words do not bring forth fruit.

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating.

The wise form right judgment of the present from what is past.

If you believe that stubbornness without reflection Is a virtue, you are thinking crookedly.

Silence has many beauties.

To women silence is the best ornament.

Many are the things that man seeing must understand. Not seeing, how shall he know what lies in the hand of time to come?

A man can get a reputation from very small things.

I pity the poor wretch, though he's my enemy. He's yoked to an evil delusion, but the same fate could be mine. I see clearly: we who live are all phantoms, fleeing shadows.

Piety dies not with man; live they or die they, it perishes not.

Opportunity possessing the power over all things, acquires much in its course.

For it is not right that a noble man should take pleasure when the pleasure is not right.

Surely there never was so evil a thing as money, which maketh cities into ruinous heaps, and banisheth men from their houses, and turneth their thoughts from good unto evil.

All men may err; but he that keepeth not his folly, but repenteth, doeth well; but stubbornness cometh to great trouble.

It is better not to exist than to live in misery.

Ah, race of mortal men,
How as a thing of nought
I count ye, though ye live;
For who is there of men
That more of blessing knows,
Than just a little while
To seem to prosper well,
And, having seemed, to fall?

Each one of us must live the life God gives him; it cannot be shirked.

The gifts of enemies are no gifts, and are fraught with mischief.

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.

Envy crawls toward the wealthy.

All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.

For chance is ever raising up the unhappy and casting down the happy, and none can say whether a man's destiny be the one or the other.

For Chance may lift and Chance may dip the scale
Of fortune and misfortune any day.

Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day.

My son, I pray
that chance will prove kinder to you
than she was to me.

What, shall such traces of my birth appear,

And I not follow them! It may not be.

A fool cannot be an actor, though an actor may act a fool's part.

Give me a life wherever there is an opportunity to live, and better life than was my father's.

For God hates utterly the bray of bragging tongues.

I could not turn away from anyone
Like you, a stranger, or refuse to help him.
I know well, being mortal, that my claim
Upon the future is no more than yours.

No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.

For the gods, though slow to see, see well, whenever a man casting aside worship turns folly.

Whoe'er imagines prudence all his own, Or deems that he hath powers to speak and judge Such as none other hath, when they are known, They are found shallow.

What you cannot enforce, do not command!

A cunning fellow is man, inventive beyond all expectation, he reaches sometimes evil and sometimes good.

Whoever has a keen eye for profits, is blind in relation to his craft.

Astronomy? Impossible to understand and madness to investigate.

Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.

In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace.

When people fall in deep distress, their native sense departs.

Count no mortal fortunate till he has departed this life free from pain.

To those who err in judgment, not in will, anger is gentle.

And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool's eye.

And if my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly.

Men's minds are given to change in hate and friendship.

Better to die, and sleep

The never-waking sleep, than linger on

And dare to live when the soul's life is gone.

Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.

Even from the first it is meek to seek the impossible.

Love, you mock us for your sport.

I write a woman's oaths in water.

Let a man nobly live or nobly die.

Sleep, thou patron of mankind, Great physician of the mind Who does nor pain nor sorrow know, Sweetest balm of every woe.

More men come to doom through dirty profits than are kept by them.

A prudent man should neglect no circumstances.

I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.

How dangerous can false reasoning prove!

Not to be born surpasses all reckoning. The next best thing by far, when one has been born is to go back as swiftly as possible whence one came.

Afterthought makes the first resolve a liar.

To err from the right path is common to mankind.

It is not righteousness to outrage.

Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.

Time is the only test of honest men, one day is space enough to know a rogue.

Shame brings no advantage in misfortunes, for silence (of the accused) is the ally of the speaker.

Pardon, and keep silent, for what is shameful for women must be concealed among women.

Truth is always straightforward.

Alas! how terrible it is to know,
Where no good comes of knowing!

For no one loves the bearer of bad tidings.

A trifle is often pregnant with high importance; the prudent man neglects no circumstance.

I am free! for I have in me the strength of truth.

A city which belongs to just one man is no true city.

Unwanted favours gain no gratitude.

It becomes one, while exempt from woes, to look to the dangers.

Deem no man happy until he passes the end of his life without suffering grief.

It can be no dishonor to learn from others when they speak good sense.

Man's highest blessedness, In wisdom chiefly stands; And in the things that touch upon the Gods, 'Tis best in word or deed To shun unholy pride; Great words of boasting bring great punishments, And so to grey-haired age Teach wisdom at the last.

To many men much-wandering hope comes as a boon, but to many others it is the deception of vain desires.

To live with glory, or with glory die,

This is the brave man's part.

You won't listen to reason at all, will you?
No. My mind is my own.

Do I not live? Badly, I know, but I live.

For kindness begets kindness evermore,

But he from whose mind fades the memory

Of benefits, noble is he no more.

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.

There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.

They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me.

Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not till he's shown his colors, ruling the people, making laws. Experience, there's the test.

I say that this crime is holy.

May the dead forgive me, I can do no other
But as I am commanded; to do more is madness. -- Ismene.

I owe more to the dead, with whom
I will spend a much longer time,
than I will ever owe to the living.

Alas! How sad when reasoners reason wrong.

The penalty is death: yet hope of gain Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.

What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

It is my nature to join in love, not hate.

Leave me to my own absurdity.

Do not believe that you alone can be right.The man who thinks that,The man who maintains that only he has the powerTo reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul-A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty.

It's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.

We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead.

Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom.

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

The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

Look how men live, always precariously balanced between good and bad fortune.

You cannot know a man's life before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad.

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.

Brave hearts do not back down back off.

Desire looks clear from the eyes of a lovely bride: power as strong as the founded world.

Why should man fear since chance is all in all for him, and he can clearly foreknow nothing? Best to live lightly, as one can, unthinkingly.

Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand.

Surely, to think your own the only wisdom, and yours the only word, the only will, betrays a shallow spirit, an empty heart.

Friendship is a tension. It makes delicate demands.

You are nothing at all. Just a crack where the light slipped through.

Not long now: the blazing dream of my head is crawling out.

Careful! There is war in women too, as you know by experience, I think.

Never since that time has this house got itself clear of rawblood butchery.

But death was a wind too strong for that.

Long have we lived in shadows and shuddering: today I think our future is opening out.

And instead my beloved, luck sent you back to me colder than ashes, later than shadow.

Yes I know sorrow. Know it far too well. My life is a tunnel choked by the sweepings of dread.

All my love gone for nothing. Days of my love, years of my love.

Oh my love take me there. Let me dwell where you are. I am already nothing, I am already burning. Oh my love, I was once part of you--take me too!

I will not live by rules like those.

Shame I do feel. And I know there is something all wrong about me--believe me. Sometimes I shock myself.

You're dreaming, girl, lost in a moving dream.

There is a kind of excellence in me and you--born in us--and it cannot live in shame.

Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.

You should not consider a man's age but his acts.

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.

What greater wound is there than a false friend?

Success, remember is the reward of toil.

Time, which sees all things, has found you out.

The golden eye of justice sees, and requites the unjust man.

Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.

I am determined that never, if I can help it,
Shall evil triumph over good. -- Creon.

No pity for these things, there is no pity but mine, oh father, for the pity of your butchering rawblood death.

Now is no time to delay. This is the edge of action.

Last night was a night of bad dreams and ambiguous visions.

I am at the end. I exist no more.

I live in a place of tears.

I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.

This is Electra. Brilliant no more.

Yes it will be a grace if I die. To exist is pain. Life is no desire of mine anymore.

A word does not frighten the man who, in acting feels no fear.

Not from Hades' black and universal lake can you lift him. Not by groaning, not by prayers. Yet you run yourself out in a grief with no cure, no time-limit, no measure. It is a knot no one can untie. Why are you so in love with things unbearable?

For even bold natures flee, whenever they see Hades close to life.

Opinions have greater power than strength of hands.

Now let the weeping cease; Let no one mourn again. These things are in the hands of God.

You would rouse to anger a heart of stone.

The man from whom the joys of life have departed is living no more, but should be counted with the dead.

Though a man be wise it is no shame for him to live and learn.

A man though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind.

A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse.

I was born to join in love, not hate -- that is my nature.

To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all.

Each say following another, either hastening or putting off our death -- what pleasure does it bring? I count that man worthless whois cheered by empty hopes. No, a noble man must either live or die well.

Obedience to authority saves many skins.

For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best.

I know that you are deathly sick; and yet, sick as you are, not one is as sick as I.

By God, I'll have more booty in a moment.

You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness-blind!

How terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the man that's wise.

When you can prove me wrong, then call me blind.

Who feels no ills, should, therefore, fear them; and when fortune smiles, be doubly cautious, lest destruction come remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.

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

Here he comes like a stealing shadow, like a footprint of death into the rooms, stalking the past with freshcut blood in his hands.

Woman, to women silence is the best ornament.

For if any man thinks that he is alone is wise -- that in speech, or in mind, he hath no peer -- such a soul, when laid open, is ever found empty.

Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still.