WIST

If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Ajax, l. 11

Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Ajax, l. 362

A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Ajax, l. 581.

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

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Ajax, l. 964 [Tecmessa]

trans. John Moore (1959).

Alt trans. by George Young (1888): “Men of perverse opinion do not know / The excellence of what is in their hands, / Till some one dash it from them.”
Alt trans.: "Men of ill judgement oft ignore the good / That lies within their hands, till they have lost it."
Alt trans.: "For those who are base in judgement do not know the good they hold in their hands until they cast it off."

All men make mistakes. But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone

No other touchstone can test the heart of a man, the temper of his mind and spirit, till he be tried in the practice of authority and rule.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone [Creon]

Stubbornness and stupidity are twins.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, l. 1020 [tr. Wyckoff (1954)]

I well believe it, to unwilling ears;
None love the messenger who brings bad news.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, l. 276-277 [Sentry to Creon]

alt. trans:
- "No man loves the bearer of bad tidings."
- "Nobody likes the man who brings bad news."

Think not that thy word and thine alone must be right.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, l. 706

A state is not a state if it belongs to one man.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, l. 737.

But the power of destiny is something awesome; neither wealth, nor Ares, nor a tower, nor dark-hulled ships might escape it.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Antigone, l. 951

Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Electra, l. 1007

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

Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Electra, l. 177

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

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Hipponous, frag. 280

Alt. trans.: "Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all." (Cited as "Fragments, l. 284 (Hipponoos)")

It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Oedipus at Colonus, l. 1143

One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Oedipus at Colonus, l. 1616

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Oedipus Rex, l. 1231
Alt. trans. "The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves."

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 (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Oedipus Rex, l. 1529 (concluding words)
Young translation:
And of no moral say
"That man is happy," till
Vexed by no grievous ill
He pass Life's goal.

Wisdom is a curse when wisdom does nothing for the man who has it.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Oedipus Rex, l. 316 [Teiresias]
Alt trans: "How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be When there's no help in truth!"

The truth is always the strongest argument.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Phaedra, frag. 737

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

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Phaedra, fragment 842

Also "Fortune never helps the fainthearted" (Fragments, l. 666)

As many as are involved in misery of their own choosing, such as you, for them there is no forgiveness nor pity.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Philoctetes, l. 1319

Sleep, ignorant of pain, sleep, ignorant of grief, may you come to us blowing softly, kindly, kindly come, king.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Philoctetes, l. 827.

Alt. trans., E. H. Plumptre (1871): "Come, blowing softly, Sleep, that know'st not pain, / Sleep, ignorant of grief, / Come softly, surely, kingly sleep, and bless ...." (Full text.)

I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Philoctetes, l. 94

Don’t you know that silence supports the accuser’s charge?

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Trachiniae [The Women of Trachis], l. 813.

Well one must learn
By doing the thing; for though you think you know it
You have no certainty, until you try.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Trachiniae [The Women of Trachis], [First Lady] [tr. Young]
Full text.

The best, wherever we are, to follow still
The customs of the country.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, #674 [tr. E. Pumptre (1865)]

Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 304 (Minos)

A fearful man is always hearing things.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 58 (Acrisius)
Alt trans: "To the man who is afraid, everything rustles."

No one who errs unwillingly is evil.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 582 [Tyro]

It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 661.

No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 671.

If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 677

What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman’s excellence?

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 679

If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 702

If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 715.

A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 88 (Aletes)

All a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Fragments, l. 98.