Sophocles quotes reflect wisdom, morality, and the timeless lessons of human nature. Known for his influential tragedies and philosophical insight, he emphasizes fate, character, and the consequences of choices. His words continue to guide reflection and understanding, offering motivational quotes, inspirational quotes, positive quotes, and life quotes that inspire thoughtful living and enduring wisdom.
“Success is dependent on effort.” – Sophocles
“Reason is God’s crowning gift to man.” – Sophocles
“Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.” – Sophocles
“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.” – Sophocles
“Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven.” – Sophocles
“What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman’s excellence?” – Sophocles
“There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune.” – Sophocles
“A lie never lives to be old.” – Sophocles
“I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.” – Sophocles
“Without labor nothing prospers.” – Sophocles
“Silence is an ornament for women.” – Sophocles
“To him who is in fear everything rustles.” – Sophocles
“To be doing good deeds is man’s most glorious task.” – Sophocles
“There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.” – Sophocles
“A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.” – Sophocles
“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: ‘Thou shalt not ration justice.'” – Sophocles
“When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.” – Sophocles
“Not to be born is, past all prizing, best.” – Sophocles
“It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.” – Sophocles
“Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.” – Sophocles
“Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.” – Sophocles
“Always desire to learn something useful.” – Sophocles
“One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.” – Sophocles
“All a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.” – Sophocles
“Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.” – Sophocles
“A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.” – Sophocles
“Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.” – Sophocles
“Despair often breeds disease.” – Sophocles
“The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.” – Sophocles
“A human being is only breath and shadow.” – Sophocles
“There is no success without hardship.” – Sophocles
“Wisdom outweighs any wealth.” – Sophocles
“Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.” – Sophocles
“There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?” – Sophocles
“Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.” – Sophocles
“Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness.” – Sophocles
“No speech can stain what is noble by nature.” – Sophocles
“Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.” – Sophocles
“Deem no man happy until he passes the end of his life without suffering grief.” – Sophocles
“The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water.” – Sophocles
“No enemy is worse than bad advice.” – Sophocles
“There is no greater evil than anarchy.” – Sophocles
“A man growing old becomes a child again.” – Sophocles
“For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.” – Sophocles
“A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.” – Sophocles
“No one longs to live more than someone growing old.” – Sophocles
“A short saying often contains much wisdom.” – Sophocles
“Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.” – Sophocles
“Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness.” – Sophocles
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.” – Sophocles
“Who seeks shall find.” – Sophocles
“War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.” – Sophocles
“You win the victory when you yield to friends.” – Sophocles
“Look and you will find it – what is unsought will go undetected.” – Sophocles
“Even a poor man can receive honors.” – Sophocles
“If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.” – Sophocles
“Wise thinkers prevail everywhere.” – Sophocles
“God’s dice always have a lucky roll.” – Sophocles
“Better not to exist than live basely.” – Sophocles
“There is a point at which even justice does injury.” – Sophocles
“Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.” – Sophocles
“Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.” – Sophocles
“You should not consider a man’s age but his acts.” – Sophocles
“Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.” – Sophocles
“Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.” – Sophocles
“Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.” – Sophocles
“Fortune raises up and fortune brings low both the man who fares well and the one who fares badly; and there is no prophet of the future for mortal men.” – Sophocles
“To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it.” – Sophocles
“I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.” – Sophocles
“Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.” – Sophocles
“How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there’s no help in the truth.” – Sophocles
“No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.” – Sophocles
“Best to live lightly, unthinkingly.” – Sophocles
“In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.” – Sophocles
“But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.” – Sophocles
“Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.” – Sophocles
“Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near.” – Sophocles
“Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.” – Sophocles
“All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit.” – Sophocles
“But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.” – Sophocles
“Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.” – Sophocles
“It is a base thing for a man among the people not to obey those in command. Never in a state can the laws be well administered when fear does not stand firm.” – Sophocles
“Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.” – Sophocles
“Don’t you know that silence supports the accuser’s charge?” – Sophocles
“It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.” – Sophocles
“Ignorant men don’t know what good they hold in their hands until they’ve flung it away.” – Sophocles
“Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.” – Sophocles
“If it were possible to cure evils by lamentation and to raise the dead with tears, then gold would be a less valuable thing than weeping.” – Sophocles
“For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.” – Sophocles
“No man loves the bearer of bad tidings.” – Sophocles
“When trouble ends even troubles please.” – Sophocles
“Evil gains work their punishment.” – Sophocles
“Old age and the passage of time teach all things.” – Sophocles
“Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.” – Sophocles
“Not even old age knows how to love death.” – Sophocles
“There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries.” – Sophocles
“No one who errs unwillingly is evil.” – Sophocles
“Not even Ares battles against necessity.” – Sophocles
“Evil counsel travels fast.” – Sophocles
“To live without evil belongs only to the gods.” – Sophocles
“It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.” – Sophocles
“Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life.” – Sophocles
“For the dead there are no more toils.” – Sophocles
“Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.” – Sophocles
“Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.” – Sophocles
“For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.” – Sophocles
“I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.” – Sophocles
“Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.” – Sophocles
“It is best to live however one can be.” – Sophocles
“Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed.” – Sophocles
“It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.” – Sophocles
“It’s a terrible thing to speak well and be wrong.” – Sophocles
“If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.” – Sophocles
“If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.” – Sophocles
“The dice of Zeus always fall luckily.” – Sophocles
“He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.” – Sophocles
“Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.” – Sophocles
“Isn’t it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies?” – Sophocles
“There is a time when even justice brings harm.” – Sophocles
“Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain?” – Sophocles
“A word does not frighten the man who, in acting, feels no fear.” – Sophocles
“A state is not a state if it belongs to one man.” – Sophocles
“It’s impossible to speak what it is not noble to do.” – Sophocles
“The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.” – Sophocles
“Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always.” – Sophocles
“There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick.” – Sophocles
“Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.” – Sophocles
“There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad.” – Sophocles
“Enemies’ gifts are no gifts and do no good.” – Sophocles
“Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere.” – Sophocles
“I see the state of all of us who live, nothing more than phantoms or a weightless shadow.” – Sophocles
“If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too.” – Sophocles
“There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.” – Sophocles
“No lie ever reaches old age.” – Sophocles
“How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.” – Sophocles
“Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.” – Sophocles
“For shameful deeds are taught by shameful deeds.” – Sophocles
“Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool.” – Sophocles
“The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest.” – Sophocles
“A day lays low and lifts up again all human things.” – Sophocles