Ancient Greeks

  1. . . . they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment. . . . Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting. . . . To de­ scribe their character in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others [Thucydides: i. 70 about the Athenians]

  2. JOCASTA: As to your mother's marriage bed,— don't fear it. Before this, in dreams too, as well as oracles, many a man has lain with his own mother. But he to whom such things are nothing bears his life most easily. [Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus 980-83. Grene trans.]

  3. For not even the mighty Herakles escaped death, albeit most dear to Kronian Zeus the King, but Fate overcame him and Hera's cruel wrath. [Homer: Iliad xviii. 115. Lang, Leaf, and Meyers trans.]

  4. What land is this? what race of men? Who is it I see here tortured in this rocky bondage? What is the sin he's paying for? Oh tell me to what part of the world my wanderings have brought me. [Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound 561-64. Grene trans.]

  5. “The sins we often regret are the sins we never commit.” – Greek Proverb

  6. “AGAMEMNON: Oh immovable law of heaven! Oh my anguish, my relentless fate! CLYTEMNESTRA: Yours? Mine. Hers. No relenting for any of us.” ― Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis

  7. “You gave birth to your own death.” ― Euripides, Electra

  8. “You don't know what your life is, nor what you're doing, nor who you are.” ― Euripides, The Bacchae

  9. “No mortal ever knows happiness and good fortune all the way to the end. Each one is born with his bitterness waiting for him.” ― Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis

  10. “I should have praise and honor for what I have done: All these men here would praise me. Were their lips not frozen shut with fear of you. Ah the good fortune of kings. Licensed to say and do whatever they please." - Antigone to Theben's King Creon” ― Sophocles

  11. “Not from Hades' black and universal lake can you lift him. Not by groaning, not by prayers. Yet you run yourself out in a grief with no cure, no time-limit, no measure. It is a knot no one can untie. Why are you so in love with things unbearable?” ― Sophocles, Electra

  12. “I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.” ― Sophocles, Electra