“Neither the life of anarchy nor the life enslaved by tyrants, no, worship neither. Strike the balance all in all and god will give you power.” 

“You have used me strangely.” 

“Pour everything out for the blood you have shed, you're wasting your time in appeasing the dead.” 

“By the sword you did your work, and by the sword you die.” 

“Fear is stronger than arms.” 

“A world of wealth is trash if men are wanting; men who have no wealth never find fortune smiling as their strength deserves.” 

“For many among men are they who set high the show of honor, yet break justice.” 

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

“For obstinacy standing alone is the weakest of all things in one whose mind is not possessed by wisdom.” 

“I beg you, alight and join your sorrow with mine: misfortune wanders everywhere, and settles now upon one and now upon another.” 

“Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.” 

“Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out; and that is far the most unhappy thing of all. 

“Yet again, isn’t there something terrible in randomness—the idea that at the very bottom of its calculations, real depravity has no master plan of any kind, it’s just a dreamy whim that slides out of people when they are trapped or bored or too lazy to analyze their own mania.” 

“You are young and young your rule and you think that the tower in which you live is free from sorrow: from it have I not seen two tyrants thrown? The third, who now is king, I shall yet live to see him fall, of all three most suddenly, most dishonored.” 

“Bethink thee of the adage, 'Call none blest, till peaceful death have crowned a life of weal.” 

“Sophokles is a playwright fascinated in general by people who say no, people who resist compromise, people who make stumbling blocks of themselves, like Antigone or Ajax.” 

“Every medicine is vain.” 

“We should know what is true before we break our rage.” 

“Who acts, shall endure. So speaks the voice of the age-old wisdom.” 

“It is always in season for old men to learn.” 

“No mortal can complete his life unharmed and unpunished throughout--ah ah! Some troubles are here now, some will come later." Chorus, Aeschylus' "Eumenides" from the Oresteia” 

“The sleeping brain has eyes that give us light; we can never see our destiny by day.” 

“But to speak ill of people at hand who give no cause for blame, is to assume a right far distinct from justice.” 

“I have suffered into truth (...) Time refines all things that age with time” 

“No shame, I think, in the death given this man. And did he not first of all in this house wreak death by treachery? 1525 The flower of this man’s love and mine, Iphigeneia of the many tears— he dealt with her even as he has suffered now.° So let his speech in Death’s house be not loud. With the sword he struck; with the sword he paid for his own act.” 

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

“For not many men . . . can love a friend who fortune prospers without envying; and about the envious brain cold poison clings and doubles all the pain life brings him. His own woundings he must nurse, and feel another's gladness like a curse.” 

“I will speak in defense of reason: for the very child of vanity is violence.” 

“If bright water you stain with mud, you nevermore will find it fit to drink.” 

“You have learned the lesson by experience.” 

“When a man's willing and eager the god's join in.” 

“Give me an answer which is plain to understand.” 

“I have not need to promise what I cannot do.” 

“In every enterprise is no greater evil than bad companionship.” 

“Do not labor uselessly at what helps not at all.” 

“This is a sickness rooted and inherent in the nature of a tyranny: that he that holds it does not trust his friends.” 

“A curse burns bright on crime.” 

“A tyrant's trust dishonors those who earn it.” 

“Look at him, look how he drips unhealth—shudder object!” 

“We nearly always live through screens—a screened existence. And I sometimes think, when people say my work looks violent, that I have been able to clear away one or two of the veils or screens.4” 

“Only when man's life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man fortunate.” 

“My heart's a dance of fear.” 

“Death is a softer thing by far than tyranny.” 

“Time brings all things to pass.” 

“Excessive fear is always powerless.” 

“When evil come on those we dearly love, never shall we betray them.” 

“Pain both ways and what is worse?” 

“From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.” 

“Let me attain no envied wealth, let me not plunder cities, neither be taken in turn, and face life in the power of another.” 

“Old men are always young enough to learn, with profit.”