Quotes from Sophocles

A man growing old becomes a child again.

A human being is only breath and shadow.

"One word frees us all of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love."

No lie ever reaches old age.

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

You would rouse to anger a heart of stone.

When you can prove me wrong, then call me blind.

Ill-gotten gains work evil.

The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.

Chance never helps those who do not help themselves.

I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.

Better not to exist than live basely.

A day lays low and lifts up again all human things.

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

Everything is ideal to its parent.

What greater ornament to a son than a father's glory, or to a father than a son's honorable conduct?

Who feels no ills, should, therefore, fear them; and when fortune smiles, be doubly cautious, lest destruction come remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.

Why should a man fear since chance is all in all for him and he can clearly fore-know nothing? Best to live lightly as one can unthinking.

An unexamined life is not worth living...

He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.

One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.

You win the victory when you yield to friends.

The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating