Oedipus Rex Quotes

“To throw away an honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“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.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Time, which sees all things, has found you out.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“How dreadful the knowledge of the truth can be
When there’s no help in truth.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that's wise!
This I knew well, but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“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.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Oblivion - what a blessing...for the mind to dwell a world away from pain.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“...count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“How terrible-- to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees!”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“All my care is you, and all my pleasure yours.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“In time you will know this well: For time, and time alone, will show the just man, though scoundrels are discovered in a day. ”
― Sophocles, Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

“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.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“The pain we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus the King

“Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Weep not, everything must have its day.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Never honor the gods in one breath and take the gods for fools the next.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Whatever is sought for can be caught, you know, whatever is neglected slips away.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Give me a life wherever there is an opportunity to live, and better life than was my father's.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“It's perfect justice: natures like yours are hardest on themselves.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“They are dying, the old oracles sent to Laius, now our masters strike them off the rolls. Nowhere Apollo's golden glory now -- the gods, the gods go down.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus The King

“Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire? O Oedipus, discrowned head, Thy cradle was thy marriage bed.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“And if you find I've lied, from this day on call the prophet blind.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“In matters where I have no cognizance
I hold my tongue.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.”
― Sophocles, The Oedipus Tyrannus

“(...) I, for one, prize less
The name of king than deeds of kingly power;
And so would all who learn in wisdom’s school.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“I am free! for I have in me the strength of truth.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

“What is God singing in his profound Delphi of gold and shadow?”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex