Sophocles Quotes

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When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed.

Sophocles (Antigone)

There is no success without hardship.
Variant: Success is dependent on effort.
Variant: Success, remember is the reward of toil.

Sophocles (Electra, ca. 409 BCE)

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

Sophocles (Antigone)

A man is nothing but breath and shadow.

Sophocles (Ajax the Locrian - Fragment)

To him who is in fear everything rustles.

Sophocles (Acrisius - Fragment)

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

Sophocles (Ajax)

Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.

Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus, 401 BCE)

The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength.

Sophocles (Oedipus Rex)

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.

Sophocles

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

Sophocles (Antigone)

He, that throws a faithful friend away, doth himself equal wrong as if he threw his life away.
Variant: He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.

Sophocles (Oedipus Rex)

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

Sophocles (Antigone)

The end excuses any evil.

Sophocles (Electra, ca. 409 BCE)

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 (Oedipus Rex)

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 Rex)

Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

Sophocles (Antigone)

Don't kill the messenger.

Sophocles (Antigone)

When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

Sophocles (Quoted in The Complete Greek Tragedies - Vol. II, 1957)

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles (Antigone)

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

Sophocles (Antigone)

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

Sophocles (Peleus - Fragment)

Sons are the anchors of a mother's life.

Sophocles (Phaedra - Fragment 612)

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