AESCHYLUS QUOTES
Greek dramatist (525 B.C.-456 B.C.)
They sent forth men to battle, but no such men return; and home, to claim their welcome, come ashes in an urn.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
For simple are the words of truth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Hoplon Krisis
The man who boldly transgresses, amassing a great heap unjustly--by force, in time, he will strike his sail, when trouble seizes him as the yardarm is splintered. He calls on those who hear nothing and he struggles in the midst of the whirling waters. The god laughs at the hot-headed man, seeing him, who boasted that this would never happen, exhausted by distress without remedy and unable to surmount the cresting wave. He wrecks the happiness of his earlier life on the reef of Justice, and he perishes unwept, unseen.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
Ah me, thou Destiny, Giver of evil gifts.
AESCHYLUS
The Seven Against Thebes
Courage! Suffering, when it climbs highest, lasts not long.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
The truth has to be melted out of our stubborn lives by suffering. Nothing speaks the truth, nothing tells us how things really are, nothing forces us to know what we do not want to know except pain. And this is how the gods declare their love.
AESCHYLUS
The Oresteia
In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
Time as he grows old teaches all things.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
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.
AESCHYLUS
The Oresteia
Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
When the black and mortal blood of man has fallen to the ground ... who then can sing spells to call it back again?
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
Wisdom comes only through suffering.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evil.
AESCHYLUS
The Suppliants
Unjustly men hate death, which is the greatest defence against their many ills.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
In visions of the night, like dropping rain, descend the many memories of pain.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
Call no man happy till he is dead.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
My will is mine ... I shall not make it soft for you.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
But still the block of Vengeance firm doth stand, and Fate, as swordsmith, hammers blow on blow.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Pourers
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
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.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon