Quotes from Sophocles

In matters where I have no cognizance I hold my tongue.

The end excuses any evil.

And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool.

There let her pray to the one god she worships: Death--who knows?--may just reprieve her from death. Or she may learn a last, better late than never, what a waste of breath it is to worship Death.

Haemon: No city is property of a single man. Creon: But custom gives possession to the ruler. Haemon: You'd rule a desert beautifully alone.

I am free! for I have in me the strength of truth.

It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.

TEIRESIAS: Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise! This I knew well, but had forgotten it, else I would not have come here.

There was the girl, screaming like an angry bird, When it finds its nest left empt and little ones gone. - Sentry

I don't even exist—I'm no one. Nothing.

Truth is always the strongest argument.

The weak can defeat the strong in a case as just as mine.

King as thou art, free speech at least is mine. To make reply; in this I am thy peer.

Closer, it's all right. Touch the man of grief. Do. Don't be afraid. My troubles are mine and I am the only man alive who can sustain them.

In his autumn before the winter comes mans last mad surge of youth.

You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness-blind!

I pleasure those whom I would liefest please.

For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, is full of misery

A State for one man is no State at all.

A sight to touch e'en hatred's self with pity.

The blind man cannot move without a guide

I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, IS no less ominous than excessive grief.

That will come when it comes; we must deal with all that lies before us. The future rests with the ones who tend the future.

I, for one, prize less The name of king than deeds of kingly power; And so would all who learn in wisdom's school.