Words of Wisdom: Sophocles Fragments

Sophocles is a famous ancient Greek playwright. He was a prolific writer: he wrote more than 120 plays, but only 7 of them survived. In addition to those plays, fragments of his other writing also survived, which I recently enjoyed reading. Some of these fragments are without much context, but I still find them insightful. 

It is amazing how he is able to convey some sharp insights with just a few words. It is amazing also how some of his fragments, though without context and so removed from us in both time and place, can make you ponder. 

Below are all those fragments I enjoyed reading. I hope you enjoy reading them as well.

The most honorable thing is to be just; the best thing is to be free from sickness; but the most delightful thing is the power each day to take hold of what one desires. 

When you are in trouble, you see much if you can calm your anger. 

For sicknesses too are caused by depressions. 

Old age and the wearying effect of time teach all things. 

No human being who does wrong by accident is evil. 

If you go through them all, you will not find a single mortal who is fortunate in all things. 

For no city can be safe in which justice and good sense are trampled under foot, and a clever talker criminally grasps a goad and guides the city.

But insolence never lasts until the sober age of active life, it is in the young that it blossoms and dies away.

It is better to be punished than to make a dishonest profit. 

In any work if you make a good beginning, it is likely that the finish will also be similar. 

Profit is sweet, even if it comes from lies. 

False words bear no fruit. 

Even without wealth a man may acquire honors. 

No noble words come from ignoble deeds. 

What can be taught, I learn; what can be found, I look for; what can be prayed for I beg of the gods. 

If you investigate, you will find that most of what men do is low. 

They wash away bitter bile with bitter medicines. 

I do not blame you; for though your words are bad, your actions are good. 

For the end of deliberation is not the same as the end of a race. 

Persuasion moves fast when it is moving men to evil. 

Let no one give counsel who has not suffered what I have suffered!

So that the brow of Zeus may be unknitted with delight. 

Delightful things and painful things occupy the same place in a man’s mind, for he weeps even when something pleasant happens to him. 

Time uncovers all things and brings them to the light. 

One wise man is ruined by many blunderers. 

For it is the way of a good man to help those in trouble. 

One should never delight in pleasures that are disgraceful.

Free men have free tongues. 

So it turns out  to be a good thing when a man is conscious of his own goodness. 

The man who aims at something noble must endure many toils, and no great fame comes from a petty contest. 

Right judgments have more power than strength of arm. 

For it is ordained that none except gods shall live without misfortunes. 

For it is hope that is the sustenance of most mortals. 

But to a mother children are the anchors of her life. 

The golden eye of Justice sees, and requites the unjust man. 

Kings are wise because of the company of wise men.

This I say to you to persuade you, not to compel; and do you of your own will act like the wise and praise justice, but cling to profit. 

For good-tempered people are not stung by a word. 

You are like a lyre which has had its reed removed. 

Someone is shouting! Ho! Do you hear? Am I howling in vain? For if one is frightened, everything makes a noise!

Those who think sensibly hold that brief speech to one’s parents and begetters is appropriate, especially when one is a maiden and an Argive by birth, since silence and few words are an ornament to such. 

For no one loves life so much as he who is growing old. 

But it is here that all the concerns of men go wrong, when they wish to cure evil with evil. 

For it is not easy to resist those who are in the right. 

Concealment is bad and is not the action of a noble man. 

For righteous speech has great power. 

My son, be silent! Silence has many beauties. 

Why should this still need many words from you? In any place excess is painful. 

I do not know what I can say in reply to this, when good men are conquered by ignoble men. What city could put up with this?

It is money that finds friends for men, and also honours, and finally the throne sublime of royalty; nearest to the gods. And no one is an enemy to money, or if they are, men deny their hatred of it. For wealth has a strange power to get to places sacred and profane, and to places from which a poor man, even if he effects an entry, could not get what he desires. For wealth makes an ugly person beautiful to look on and an incoherent speech eloquent; and wealth alone can enjoy pleasure even in sickness and can conceal its miseries. 

He darts spears from his eyes. 

For victims of envy find that ill repute wins out over shameful rather than over honourable actions. 

O tongue, among what sort of men do you enjoy honour, in a place where words have more strength than deeds!

But where it is not possible to say with freedom what is best, and the worse prevails in the city, mistakes upset safety. 

Maintain restraint in speech, as is proper in old age. 

The only possessions that are permanent are those of excellence. 

 For there is a pleasure in certain words, if they cause one to forget the troubles that one has. 

But you do not see (or do you not see . . . ?) the enemy hovering about.

The most painful thing of all happens when one could have arranged things neatly, but brings the damage over to oneself. 

Whoever approaches danger bodly talks straight and his purpose is not shaken. 

Telling lies is not honorable; but if the truth means grim ruin for you, even what is dishonorable may be forgiven. 

And do not be surprised, my lord, if I hold on to my profit as I do! For even mortals who have great wealth grasp at profit, and for human beings all other things rank after money. There are those who exalt the man who is free from sickness, but I think that no poor man is free from sickness; the poor man is always sick. 

When one is no longer weary, labours are delightful. 

To open the closed door of the mind . . .

You will never attain to the heights without labour. 

Fortune does not fight on the side of those who take no action. 

. . . since for the unfortunate it is delightful even for a short time to forget the woes that are with them. 

No one is without troubles, and he who has the least is the most fortunate. 

Do you hear? She is wandering, distraught by her sorrows! . . . O sight unhoped for and beyond words! For she is darting from the palace, like a colt released from the yoke, she whose sorrows with those of her sisters lately distressed us! Where are you rushing? What is the cause of your new terror, unhappy one? Wait!

But when an oath is taken in addition, the mind is more attentive; for it guards against two things, the reproach of friends and offence against the gods. 

Would that I could become a high-flying eagle, so that I could fly beyond the barren ether over the waves of the gray sea!

I alone keep the house and tend the old age of Peleus, son of Aeacus, and retrain him; for as a man grows old he becomes a child once more. 

For it is better not to exist than live in misery. 

It is pleasant to get some exercise and to give one’s arm some practice. 

For war likes to hunt down men who are young. 

For there is no pain like a long life. 

Why, if it were possible to heal troubles by weeping, and to raise up dead by tears, gold would be a less precious possession than lamentation! But as things are, aged man, it is impossible to bring up to the light who is hidden in the tomb. Why, if tears could have done it, my father would have been brought up to the light. 

When you are a young man of great family with luxuriant beard, you ought not to be called the son of your stomach, when you could be called that of your father. 

He is mad! But they acted still more madly in punishing him by violence. For any mortal who is infuriated by his wrongs and applies a medicine that is worse than the disease is a doctor who does not understand the trouble. 

Mankind is one tribe; one day in the life of father and mother brought to birth all of us; none was born superior to any other. But some are nurtured by a fate of misfortune, others of us by prosperity, and others are held down by the yoke of compulsion that enslaves us. 

Among the multiplicity of the many the descendent of noble men is not always good and that of useless people is not always bad; nothing about mortals can be trusted. 

For it is not right that a noble man should take pleasure when the pleasure is not right.