Quotes from The Complete Plays

Sophocles ·  420 pages

Rating: (3.6K votes)


“You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness-blind!”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays


“ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could’st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven.  I knew that I must die, E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery.  Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother’s son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly’s not acquit.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays


“And now that Reason’s light returns, New sorrow in his spirit burns.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays


“Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the destined final day, we must call no one happy who is of mortal race, until he has crossed life's border, free from pain.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays


“O građani otadžbine Tebe, evo Edipa,
znalca čudesne zagonetke i prvog čoveka,
čiju sreću niko nije gledao bez zavisti!
Gledajte u kakav ponor sudbe grozne pade on!
Zato nikog, dan dok onaj poslednji ne dočeka,
neću proslavljati kao srećna, pre no doplovi
kraju veka svog a nikakav ne pogodi ga jad.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays



About the author

Sophocles
Born place: Colonus (Athens), Greece
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Lucien had taught him that fear was good; fear was an ally; that every lawyer was afraid when he stood before a new jury and presented his case. It was okay to be afraid - just don’t show it. Jurors would not follow the lawyer with the quickest tongue or prettiest words. They would not follow the sharpest dresser. They would not follow a clown or court jester. They would not follow a lawyer who preached the loudest or fought the hardest. Lucien had convinced him that jurors followed the lawyer who told the truth, regardless of his looks, words, or superficial abilities. A lawyer had to be himself in the courtroom, and if he was afraid, so be it. The jurors were afraid too.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Time to Kill


“At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring.”
― Charles Frazier, quote from Cold Mountain


“In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her as not unlikely, that she might that morning have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman’s confinement—might have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what part of the Abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division?”
― Jane Austen, quote from The Complete Novels


“When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this:
You take a hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a
size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such a manner that the
brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs, thus cut off, be interchanged, applying each to the head of his
opposite party-man. It seems indeed to be a work that requires some exactness, but the professor assured us,
"that if it were dexterously performed, the cure would be infallible." For he argued thus: "that the two half
brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a
good understanding, and produce that moderation, as well as regularity of thinking, so much to be wished for
in the heads of those, who imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern its motion: and as to
the difference of brains, in quantity or quality, among those who are directors in faction, the doctor assured us,
from his own knowledge, that "it was a perfect trifle.”
― Jonathan Swift, quote from Gulliver's Travels


“Whoever is happy will make others happy.”
― Anne Frank, quote from The Diary of a Young Girl


Interesting books

The Arsonist
(567)
The Arsonist
by Stephanie Oakes
Blaze
(6K)
Blaze
by Suzanne Wright
Classic Christianity: Life's Too Short to Miss the Real Thing
(481)
Classic Christianity...
by Bob George
Horrorstör
(14.7K)
Horrorstör
by Grady Hendrix
The Guest Room
(20.9K)
The Guest Room
by Chris Bohjalian
Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales
(131.5K)
Grimm's Complete Fai...
by Jacob Grimm

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.