Quotes from Aeschylus

This is the law: blood spilt upon the ground cries out for more.

Rumors have wings.

Old men, what are they? Fast fading the leaf, Three-footed they walk, yet frail as a child, As a dream set afloat in the daylight.

In the sinews of the dead there is no blood.

But who can describe the overweening pride of men? Or women mad with passion, reckless in their hearts, soulmates to every kind of ruin that befalls us? Wild passion, unrestrained, boundless, that overcomes the women, perverts the yoke of wedlock for beasts and men alike.

Trouble, with its memories of pain, drips in our hearts as we try to sleep, so men against their will learn to practice moderation.

To many mortals silence great gain brings.

Lustre of man walking proud beneath the sky diminishes to nothing and goes unregarded.

Would that I might get a mantle like unto the heavens!

The polished brass is mirror of the form, wine of the soul.

When deep slumber falls, remembered sins Chafe the sore heart with fresh pain, and no Welcome wisdom meets within.

Thus upon mine restful couch I lie, Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited By dreams--ah me!--for in the place of sleep Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.

The so-called mother of the child isn't the child's begetter, but only a sort of nursing soil for the new-sown seed. The man, the one on top, is the true parent, while she, a stranger, foster's a stranger's sprout.

The seed of mortals broods o'er passing things, and hath nought surer than the smoke-cloud's shadow.

The holy heaven yearns to wound the earth, and yearning layeth hold on the earth to join in wedlock; the rain, fallen from the amorous heaven, impregnates the earth, and it bringeth forth for mankind the food of flocks and herds and Demeter's gifts; and from that moist marriage-rite the woods put on their bloom.

It is the nature of mortals to kick a fallen man.

Dreams are free.

But when the dust has drunk the blood of men, no resurrection comes for one who's dead.

The air is Zeus, Zeus earth, and Zeus the heaven, Zeus all that is, and what transcends them all.

Hungry wailing standeth not aloof.

Good fortune is a god among men, and more than a god.

O bountiful Night, housekeeper of heaven's embroidery.

No bribes. Nothing that passes under the roof of a temple Or under the roof of the mouth, can appease heaven's anger Or deflect its aim.

Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast, he dieth not, unless the appointed time, the limit of his life's span, coincide; nor does the man who by the hearth at home sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees.