"Like the sweet apple reddening on the topmost branch, the topmost apple on the tip of the branch, and the pickers forgot it, well, no, they didn't forget, they just couldn't reach it."

"Sweet mother, I truly cannot weave my web; for I am o’erwhelmed through Aphrodite with love of a slender youth."

"Truly, I wish I were dead. She was weeping when she left me, and said many things to me, and said this: "How much we have suffered, Sappho. Truly, I don't want to leave you.""

"Do thou, O Dica, set garlands upon thy lovely hair, weaving sprigs of dill with thy delicate hands; for those who wear fair blossoms may surely stand first, even in the presence of Goddesses who look without favour upon those who come ungarlanded."

"O dream on your black wings you come when I am sleeping.Sweet is the god but still I am in agony and far from my strength.for I had hope (none now) to share something of the blessed gods,nor was I so foolish as to scorn pleasant toys.Now may I have all these things."

"Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past."

"The Philoctetes is a most noble play; conspicuous even among the works of Sophocles for the grace and majesty of effect produced by the most simple means. There is more character in it than in any play in the Greek language; two or three of Euripides's best excepted."

"I have been less pleased with this perusal of the Œdipus Tyrannus than I was when I read it in January; perhaps because I then read it all at one sitting. The construction seems to me less perfect than I formerly thought it. But nothing can exceed the skill with which the discovery is managed. The agony of Œdipus is so unutterably grand; and the tender sorrow, in which his mind at last reposes after his daughters have been brought to him, is as moving as anything in the Greek Drama."

"The first part of the Ajax is prodigiously fine. I do not know that the agonies of wounded honour have ever been so sublimely represented... But the interest of the piece dies with Ajax. In the debates which follow, Sophocles does not succeed as well as Euripides would have done. The odes, too, are not very good."

"... Sophocles, the poet loved and feared, Whose mighty voice once called out of her lair The Dorian muse severe, with braided hair, Who loved the thyrsus and wild dances weird."

"Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand. Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea."

"Be his My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul From first youth tested up to extreme old age Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole; The mellow glory of the Attic stage, Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child."

"ὁ δ’εὔκολος μὲν ἐνθάδ’, εὔκολος δ’ἐκεῖ"

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

"ἐν ᾧ τλάμων ὅδ᾽, οὐκ ἐγὼ μόνος, πάντοθεν βόρειος ὥς τις ἀκτὰ κυματοπλὴξ χειμερία κλονεῖται, ὣς καὶ τόνδε κατ᾽ ἄκρας δειναὶ κυματοαγεῖς ἆται κλονέουσιν ἀεὶ ξυνοῦσαι."

"μὴ φῦναι τὸν ἅπαντα νι- κᾷ λόγον."

"In a just cause the weak o'ercome the strong."

"Knowledge must come through action; thou canst have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial."

"They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me."

"A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse."

"There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched."

"There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, And proud men in old age learn to be wise."

"ὅσῳ κράτιστον κτημάτων εὐβουλία"

"τοῖς πᾶσι κοινόν ἐστι τοὐξαμαρτάνειν: ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἁμάρτῃ, κεῖνος οὐκέτ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἀνὴρ ἄβουλος οὐδ᾽ ἄνολβος, ὅστις ἐς κακὸν πεσὼν ἀκῆται μηδ᾽ ἀκίνητος πέλῃ."

"Love, unconquerable, Waster of rich men, keeper Of warm lights and all-night vigil In the soft face of a girl: Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor! Even the pure immortals cannot escape you, And mortal man, in his one day's dusk, Trembles before your glory."

"The ideal condition Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; But since we are all too likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach."

"ἀλλ᾽ ἄνδρα, κεἴ τις ᾖ σοφός, τὸ μανθάνειν πόλλ᾽."

"μή νυν ἓν ἦθος μοῦνον ἐν σαυτῷ φόρει, ὡς φὴς σύ, κοὐδὲν ἄλλο, τοῦτ᾽ ὀρθῶς ἔχειν."

"Show me the man who keeps his house in hand, He's fit for public authority."

"τὸ κακὸν δοκεῖν ποτ᾽ ἐσθλὸν τῷδ᾽ ἔμμεν' ὅτῳ φρένας θεὸς ἄγει πρὸς ἄταν"

"Happy are they who know not the taste of evil."

"Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver."

"ὅστις γὰρ ἐν πολλοῖσιν ὡς ἐγὼ κακοῖς ζῇ, πῶς ὅδ᾽ οὐχὶ κατθανὼν κέρδος φέρει"

"It is a good thing To escape from death, but it is not great pleasure To bring death to a friend."

"πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀν- θρώπου δεινότερον πέλει."

"Henceforth ye may thieve with better knowledge whence lucre should be won, and learn that it is not well to love gain from every source. For thou wilt find that ill-gotten pelf brings more men to ruin than to weal."

"Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This lays cities low, this drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest souls till they set themselves to works of shame; this still teaches folk to practise villainies, and to know every godless deed. But all the men who wrought this thing for hire have made it sure that, soon or late, they shall pay the price."

"Money! There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money."

"Nobody likes the man who brings bad news."

"I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare — I have no use for him, either."

"Our Ship of State, which recent storms have threatened to destroy, has come safely to harbor at last."

"For God hates utterly The bray of bragging tongues."

"Let every man in mankind's frailty Consider his last day; and let none Presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain."

"Time eases all things."

"The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves."

"I am the child of Fortune, The giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; My rising and my falling match with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no other man Than that I am, and will know who I am."

"Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day."

"The tyrant is a child of Pride Who drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity, Until from his high crest headlong He plummets to the dust of hope."