Aeschylus quotes

Out of respect, a man must veil his words when talking with a woman, but with a man he can frankly say whatever's on his mind.

Wisdom comes through suffering. Trouble, with its memories of pain, Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep, So men against their will Learn to practice moderation. Favours come to us from gods.

Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.

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

For the marriage bed ordained by fate for men and women is stronger than an oath and guarded by Justice.

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

Don't try to make intelligent decisions when your brain is hyped

Search well and be wise, nor believe that self-willed pride will ever be better than good counsel.

Know not to revere human things too much.

Against necessity, against its strength, no one can fight and win.

A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.

Only one accomplishment is beyond both the power and the mercy of the Gods. They cannot make the past as though it had never been.

He hears but half who hears one party only.

Unions in wedlock are perverted by the victory of shameless passion that masters the female among men and beasts.

Neither a life of anarchy nor a life under a despot should you praise. To all that lies in the middle has a god given excellence.

By Time and Age full many things are taught.

Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.

Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.

To be free from evil thoughts is God's best gift.

Fear is stronger than arms.

The wisest of the wise may err.

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.

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.

My will is mine...I shall not make it soft for you.

I say you must not win an unjust case by oaths.

For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.

Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.

Death is easier than a wretched life; and better never to have born than to live and fare badly.

I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.

Whoever is just willingly and without compulsion will not lack happiness; he will never be utterly destroyed.

The power that holds the sky's majesty wins our worship.

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.

The force of necessity is irresistible.

"Reverence for parents" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.

Human prosperity never rests but always craves more, till blown up with pride it totters and falls. From the opulent mansions pointed at by all passers-by none warns it away, none cries, 'Let no more riches enter!'.

Fear hurries on my tongue through want of courage.

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

Overly persuasive a woman's ordinance spreads far, traveling fast; but fast dying a rumor voiced by a woman perishes.

Many among men are they who set high the show of honor, yet break justice.

When we sleep the soul is lit up... by many eyes, and with them, we can see everything that we cannot see in the daytime.

Oh, it is easy for the one who stands outside the prison-wall of pain to exhort and teach the one who suffers.

But let the good prevail.

The words of truth are simple.

Those who would learn must suffer. In our own despair, against our will, wisdom comes to us.

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

So in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft: With our own feathers, not by others' hands, Are we now smitten.

Old age hath stronger sense of right than youth.

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.

The man who boldly transgresses, amassing a great heap unjustly--by force, in time, he will strike his sail, when trouble seizes him as the yardarm is splintered. He calls on those who hear nothing and he struggles in the midst of the whirling waters. The god laughs at the hot-headed man, seeing him, who boasted that this would never happen, exhausted by distress without remedy and unable to surmount the cresting wave. He wrecks the happiness of his earlier life on the reef of Justice, and he perishes unwept, unseen.

My friends, whoever has had experience of evils knows how whenever a flood of ills comes upon mortals, a man fears everything; but whenever a divine force cheers on our voyage, then we believe that the same fate will always blow fair.

For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.

What is there more kindly than the feeling between host and guest?

The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.

There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.

If you are not envied, you are not enviable.

Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things.

God always strives together with those who strive.

No one can count the terrors that the earth spawns, catastrophic, gruesome, and the vast arms of the sea swarm with brute monsters bent on harm, and everywhere between the sky and ground lights bloom by day in flares and sudden bolts; and birds and beasts alike can tell of the whirlwind's whirling wrath.

ATHENA: You wish to be called righteous rather than act right. [...] I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.

Wrong must not win by technicalities.

Only through suffering do we learn

Many men who transgress justice, honor appearance over reality.

When a man takes the road to destruction, the gods help him along.

I would rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils.

Wiles and deceit are female qualities.

Justice shines in very smoky homes, and honors the righteous; but the gold-spangled mansions where the hands are unclean she leaves with eyes averted.

Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend's success without envy.

Words are healers of the sick tempered.

God loves to help him who strives to help himself.

Delay not to seize the hour!

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.

The truth Has to be melted out of our stubborn lives By suffering. Nothing speaks the truth, Nothing tells us how things really are, Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain. And this is how the gods declare their love.

You shall learn, though late, the lesson of how to be discreet.

Even the old should learn.

Time brings all things to pass.

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

The high strength of men knows no content with limitation.

The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance.

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.

To many mortals silence great gain brings.

Remember to be submissive, thou art analien, a fugitive, and in need.

I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year's watch that lying on the Atreidae's roof on bended arm, dog- like, I have kept, marking the conclave of all night's stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane, when they rise.

The future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.

But from the good health of the mind comes that which is dear to all and the object of prayer-happiness.

Honor modesty more than your life.

Whenever a man makes haste, God too hastens with him.

Alas for the affairs of men! When they are fortunate you might compare them to a shadow; and if they are unfortunate, a wet sponge with one dash wipes the picture away.

Courage! Suffering, when it climbs highest, lasts not long.

It is best for the wise man not to seem wise.

For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.

In visions of the night, like dropping rain, Descend the many memories of pain.

In war, truth is the first casualty.

God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.

Don't you know this, that words are doctors to a diseased temperment?

Obstinacy standing alone is the weakest of all things in one whose mind is not possessed by wisdom.

Base men who prosper are unenviable.

The act of evil breeds others to follow, young sins in its own likeness.

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.

Arrogance is truly the child of impiety, but from health of soul comes happiness, dear to all, much prayed for.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

The tongue of slander is too prompt with wanton malice to wound the stranger.

And now it goes as it goes and where it ends is Fate. And neither by singeing flesh nor tipping cups of wine nor shedding burning tears can you enchant away the rigid Fury.

To learn is to be young, however old.

For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.

The reward of pain is experience.

When a tongue fails to send forth appropriate shafts, there might be a word to act as healer of these.

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

Be it mine to draw from wisdom's fount, pure as it flows, that calm of soul which virtue only knows.

What good is it to live a life that brings pains?

For this our task hath Fate spun without fail to last for ever sure, that we on man weighed down with deeds of hate should follow till the earth his life immure. Nor when he dies can he boast of being truly free.

Do not kick against the pricks.

For mortal kind taketh thought only for the day, and hath no more surety than the shadow of smoke.

God's most lordly gift to man is decency of mind.

Take courage; pain's extremity soon ends.

Call no man happy till he is dead.

Once to die is better than length of days in sorrow without end.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense.

Simple is the speech of truth.