Sophocles 496 BC - 406 BC Greek Tragic Poet

I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.

You win the victory when you yield to friends.

None love the messenger who brings bad news.

Though a man be wise it is no shame for him to live and learn.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.

There is point beyond which even justice becomes unjust.

Reason is God's crowning gift to man.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Think not that thy word and thine alone must be right.

No man loves life like him that's growing old.

Don't shoot the messenger.

To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Nobody loves life like him that's growing old.

Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.

What you cannot enforce, do not command.

Heaven never helps the men who will not act.

There are many wonderful things, but none is more wonderful than man.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

No oath too binding for a lover.

Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand.

One learns by doing a thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

War loves to seek its victims in the young.

Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good. That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.

Nobody loves life like an old man.

Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

The truth is always the strongest argument.

No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.

There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.

The dice of Zeus fall ever luckily.

Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.

No enemy is worse than bad advice.

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth.

There is no success without hardship.

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.

To him who is in fear everything rustles.

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.

Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.

There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?

Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

It is not righteousness to outrage. A brave man dead, not even though you hate him.

No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.