Aeschylus quotes:

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

Ah, lives of men! When prosperous they glitter - Like a fair picture; when misfortune comes - A wet sponge at one blow has blurred the painting.

My friends, whoever has had experience of evils knows how whenever a flood of ills comes upon mortals, a man fears everything; but whenever a divine force cheers on our voyage, then we believe that the same fate will always blow fair.

Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.

God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.

If you pour oil and vinegar into the same vessel, you would call them not friends but opponents.

God loves to help him who strives to help himself.

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.

For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

To be free from evil thoughts is God's best gift.

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.

Search well and be wise, nor believe that self-willed pride will ever be better than good counsel.

And though all streams flow from a single course to cleanse the blood from polluted hand, they hasten on their course in vain.

God's most lordly gift to man is decency of mind.

For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.

Of all the gods only death does not desire gifts.

I would rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils.

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.

But time growing old teaches all things.

Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.

A god implants in mortal guilt whenever he wants utterly to confound a house.

Wisdom comes alone through suffering.

In the lack of judgment great harm arises, but one vote cast can set right a house.

Time brings all things to pass.

For children preserve the fame of a man after his death.

The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.

And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin.

Only when a man's life comes to its end in prosperity dare we pronounce him happy.

Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water.

For know that no one is free, except Zeus.

And there they ring the walls, the young, the lithe. The handsome hold the graves they won in Troy; the enemy earth rides over those who conquered.

We only learn wisdom through suffering.

For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.

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.

I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery."

The act of evil breeds others to follow, young sins in its own likeness.

It is a light thing for whoever keeps his foot outside trouble to advise and counsel him that suffers.

Everyone's quick to blame the alien.

Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.

In war, truth is the first casualty.

The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance.

The great and amorous sky curved over the earth, and lay upon her as a pure lover. The rain, the humid flux descending from heaven for both man and animal, for both thick and strong, germinated the wheat, swelled the furrows with fecund mud and brought forth the buds in the orchards. And it is I who empowered these moist espousals, I the great Aphrodite ....

There is no avoidance in delay.

I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year's watch that lying on the Atreidae's roof on bended arm, dog- like, I have kept, marking the conclave of all night's stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane, when they rise.

Be bold and boast, just like the cock beside the hen.

Bronze is the mirror of form, wine of the heart.

Alas for the affairs of men! When they are fortunate you might compare them to a shadow; and if they are unfortunate, a wet sponge with one dash wipes the picture away.

The holy heaven yearns to wound the earth, and yearning layeth hold on the earth to join in wedlock; the rain, fallen from the amorous heaven, impregnates the earth, and it bringeth forth for mankind the food of flocks and herds and Demeter's gifts; and from that moist marriage-rite the woods put on their bloom.

There is no disgrace in an enemy suffering ill at an enemy's hand, when you hate mutually.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams.

When a match has equal partners then I fear not.

Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

Remember to be submissive, thou art analien, a fugitive, and in need.

Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

They sent forth men to battle, But no such men return; And home, to claim their welcome, Come ashes in an urn

For the marriage bed ordained by fate for men and women is stronger than an oath and guarded by Justice.

We shall perish by guile just as we slew.

For Hades is mighty in calling men to account below the earth, and with a mind that records in tablets he surveys all things.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

Whenever a man makes haste, God too hastens with him.

There's only few people who have strength to honor someone's achievement without envy.

The will was of Zeus, the hand of Hephaestus.

For a single path leads to the house of Hades.

It is an ill thing to be the first to bring news of ill.

Who apart from the gods is without pain for his whole lifetime's length?

Don't you know this, that words are doctors to a diseased temperment?

You'll see all other mortal sinners, the ones who flout the honor owed to gods or guests, or loving parents--you'll see them get the justice they deserve. For Hades holds men mightily to a strict accounting down below the earth; he sees all things, inscribes them within the book of his remembering.

Honor modesty more than your life.

May dawn, as the proverb goes, bring happy tidings coming from her mother night.

Mourn for me rather as living than as dead.

To mourn and bewail your ill-fortune, when you will gain a tear from those who listen, this is worth the trouble.

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.

Myriad laughter of the ocean waves.

But I will place this carefully fed pig Within the crackling oven; and, I pray, What nicer dish can e'er be given to man.

Excessive fear is always powerless.

He hears but half who hears one party only.

[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.

Human prosperity never rests but always craves more, till blown up with pride it totters and falls. From the opulent mansions pointed at by all passers-by none warns it away, none cries, 'Let no more riches enter!'.

The reward of suffering is experience

There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

Rumours voiced by women come to nothing.

It is always in season for old men to learn

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.

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.

God always strives together with those who strive.

The man whose authority is recent is always stern.

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

Death is softer by far than tyranny.

Nothing forces us to knowWhat we do not want to knowExcept pain

Wisdom comes through suffering.Trouble, with its memories of pain,Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,So men against their willLearn to practice moderation.Favours come to us from gods.

Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things.

Unions in wedlock are perverted by the victory of shameless passion that masters the female among men and beasts.

Know not to revere human things too much.

No one can count the terrors that the earth spawns, catastrophic, gruesome, and the vast arms of the sea swarm with brute monsters bent on harm, and everywhere between the sky and ground lights bloom by day in flares and sudden bolts; and birds and beasts alike can tell of the whirlwind's whirling wrath.

The moving light, rejoicing in its strength, Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way, In golden glory, like some strange new sun...

I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.

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.

For this our task hath Fate spun without fail to last for ever sure, that we on man weighed down with deeds of hate should follow till the earth his life immure. Nor when he dies can he boast of being truly free.

Nought is there in wealth That serves as bulwark 'gainst the subtle stealth Of Destiny and Doom.

We must pronounce him fortunate who has ended his life in fair prosperity.

And now it goes as it goes and where it ends is Fate. And neither by singeing flesh nor tipping cups of wine nor shedding burning tears can you enchant away the rigid Fury.

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.

I say you must not win an unjust case by oaths.

Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time. These lines are from a section of doubtful or spurious fragments.

Time waxing old can many a lesson teach.

When a man's willing and eager the god's join in.

The wisest of the wise may err.

Willingly no one chooses the yoke of slavery.

Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

It is always in season for old men to learn.

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.

For a murderous blow let murderous blow atone.

What atonement is there for blood spilt upon the earth?