To throw away an honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away.
—Sophocles
Topics: Friendship
Silence gives the proper grace to women
—Sophocles
Topics: Grace
Is anyone in all the world safe from unhappiness?
—Sophocles
Topics: Happiness, Unhappiness
In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace.
—Sophocles
There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.
—Sophocles
Topics: Words
For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.
—Sophocles
Topics: Wit
Men of ill judgment often ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
—Sophocles
Topics: Judges, Judgement, Judging, Judgment
Woman, to women silence is the best ornament.
—Sophocles
Topics: Silence
If i am young and wrong, then you are right. But if i am young, and right. What does my age matter?
—Sophocles
Ignorant men don’t know what good they hold in their hands until they’ve flung it away.
—Sophocles
Topics: Appreciation
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
—Sophocles
Topics: Worry, Self-reliance, Responsibility, Grief, Confidence
It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself, and no one else, has made it.
—Sophocles
Topics: Confidence, Responsibility, Self-reliance
Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
—Sophocles
Topics: Wisdom
Everything is ideal to its parent.
—Sophocles
Topics: Family
Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.
—Sophocles
Topics: Decision, Decisions
What you cannot enforce, do not command.
—Sophocles
Topics: Leadership, Power, Leaders
When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.
—Sophocles
Topics: Happiness
Look and you will find it—what is unsought will go undetected.
—Sophocles
Topics: Possibilities, Potential
Dreadful is the mysterious power of fate; there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by walled city or dark, seabeaten ships.
—Sophocles
Topics: Fate
All is disgust when one leaves his own nature and does things that misfit it.
—Sophocles
Topics: Being Ourselves
Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.
—Sophocles
Topics: Profit
Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.
—Sophocles
Topics: Wisdom, Happiness
The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest.
—Sophocles
Topics: Reason
Success, remember is the reward of toil.
—Sophocles
Topics: Success, Success & Failure
Much wisdom often goes with fewer words.
—Sophocles
Topics: Wisdom, Journeys
Not to be born is, past all prizing, best.
—Sophocles
There is no witness so terrible-no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
—Sophocles
Topics: Conscience
There is no success without hardship.
—Sophocles
Topics: Success
Without labor nothing prospers.
—Sophocles
Topics: One liners, Work, Labor
Seize the hour.
—Sophocles
Topics: Time Management, Value of a Day
Kindness gives birth to kindness.
—Sophocles
Topics: Kindness
There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
—Sophocles
Topics: Conscience
Truth is always the strongest argument.
—Sophocles
Topics: Truth
One learns by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.
—Sophocles
Topics: Ignorance
It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.
—Sophocles
Topics: Speaking, Speakers
Why should a man fear since chance is all in all for him, and he can clearly fore-know nothing’? Best to lightly live as one can, unthinking.
—Sophocles
Topics: Fear, Anxiety
A man, though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind.
—Sophocles
Better to die, and sleep
The never-waking sleep, than linger on
And dare to live when the soul’s life is gone.
—Sophocles
Topics: Suicide
Heaven ne’er helps the man who will not act.
—Sophocles
Topics: Act, Prayer, Action, Acting, Heaven
Kindness begets kindness.
—Sophocles
Topics: Kindness
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Euripides Ancient Greek Dramatist
Heraclitus Ancient Greek Philosopher
Xenocrates Greek Philosopher, Scientist
Homer Ancient Greek Poet
Epictetus Ancient Greek Philosopher
Bias of Priene Greek Orator
Aristotle Ancient Greek Philosopher
Plotinus Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mystic
Plato Ancient Greek Philosopher
Epicurus Greek Philosopher