WIST

Death is a softer thing by far than tyranny.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, I. 1364
Alt trans.: "Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny." "Death is softer by far than tyranny."

Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, l. 179

Alt. trans.:
"He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."

The above alternate was misquoted by Robert Kennedy in his speecn on the assassination of Martin Luther King (4 Apr 1968). Kennedy's family used it as an epitaph on his grave Arlington National Cemetery:

"In our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
 

How rare, men with the character to praise
a friend’s success without a trace of envy.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, l. 818 [tr. R. Fagles (1975)]

Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend’s success without envy. … I well know that mirror of friendship, shadow of a shade.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, l. 832
Alt trans.: "It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered."

Only when man’s life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man happy.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, l. 928

Alt trans.:
"Call no man happy till he is dead."
"Hold him alone truly fortunate who has ended his life in happy well-being."

Compare to Sophocles.

For somehow this is tyranny’s disease, to trust no friends.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Prometheus Bound, l. 224

Alt trans: "In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend."

Everyone’s quick to blame the alien.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
The Suppliant Maidens

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Fragment 385