Sophocles Quotes – Wisdom from the Greek Tragedy Master
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
There is no success without hardship.
Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive; let them understand I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends.
Better to die, and sleep The never-waking sleep, than linger on And dare to live when the soul’s life is gone.
Success is not easy, but it is possible.
To be alive is power.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when miserable.
A man who knows how to live never becomes perplexed in the face of a difficulty.
Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.
Only the gods live forever.
Those whose greed drives them will always be in want.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
The dead teach the living.
Every person is his own Achilles’ heel.
The tyrant is a child of pride who drinks from his sickening cup recklessness and vanity.
It is not possible to learn without pain.
Heaven never helps the man who will not act.
To throw away an honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away.
Character is destiny.
Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.
A whisper is more powerful than a shout.
Silence is true wisdom’s best reply.
The soul that has no home, no purpose, and no destination is lost.
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.
You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.
Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.
Those whose greed drives them will always be in want.
Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.
One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.
Time eases all things.
To be happy, one must be wise.
Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
The words of truth are always paradoxical.
Do not fear the gods, and you are less likely to invoke them.
There is no grief that time does not lessen and soften.
True worth is in being, not seeming.
The keenest sorrows most easily expressed.
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when miserable.
There is no greater evil than to take false steps, except to stop taking steps at all.
Ambition drives us all to become great, but only the noblest men seek greatness for the sake of others.
Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Our deeds determine us, much more than our words.
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.