Quotes from Aeschylus

A great ox stands on my tongue.

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

ATHENA: There are two sides to this dispute. I've heard only one half the argument. (...) So you two parties, summon your witnesses, set out your proofs, with sworn evidence to back your stories. Once I've picked the finest men in Athens, I'll return. They'll rule fairly in this case, bound by a sworn oath to act with justice.

We spoil ourselves with scruples long as things go well.

This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning.

Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?

Wisdom comes alone through suffering.

Bastions of wealth are no deference for the man who treads the grand altar of Justice down and out of sight.

Hermes addresses Prometheus :] To you, the clever and crafty, bitter beyond all bitterness, who has sinned against the gods in bestowing honors upon creatures of a day--to you, thief of fire, I speak.

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. -Cassandra

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

Thus he died, and all the life struggled out of him; and as he died he spattered me with the dark red and violent driven rain of bitter-savored blood to make me glad, as gardens stand among the showers of God in glory at the birthtime of the buds.

For Ares, lord of strife, Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold, War's money-changer, giving dust for gold, Sends back, to hearts that held them dear, Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear, Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul; Yea, fills the light urn full With what survived the flame— Death's dusty measure of a hero's frame!

But there is a cure in the house, and not outside it, no, not from others but from them, their bloody strife. We sing to you, dark gods beneath the earth.

You have used me strangely.

The gods! long since they hold us in contempt, Scornful of gifts thus offered by the lost! Why should we fawn and flinch away from doom?

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.

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

But the lust for power never dies- men cannot have enough. No one will lift a hand to send it from his door, to give it warning, 'Power, never come again!

Sorrow with me, Sorrowful one! Tell me, whose voice proclaims Things true and sad, Naming by all their old, unhappy names, What drove me mad--

that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again and we resist, but ripeness comes as well. From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench there comes a violent love.

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.

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.