Greek Tragedy Quotes

“Of all creatures that can feel and think,
we women are the worst treated things alive”
― Euripides, Medea

“I'd three times sooner go to war than suffer childbirth once.”
― Euripides, Medea

“[A]s Agatha Swanburne once said, 'To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions.”
― Maryrose Wood, The Hidden Gallery

“It's human; we all put self interest first.”
― Euripides, Medea

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

“Mortal fate is hard. You'd best get used to it.”
― Euripides, Medea

“PROMETHEUS: 'Oh, it is easy for the one who stands outside the prison-wall of pain to exhort and teach the one who suffers”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“Yes it will be a grace if I die. To exist is pain. Life is no desire of mine anymore.”
― Sophocles, Electra

“ORESTES: Never shall I see you again.

ELECTRA: Nor I see myself in your eyes.

ORESTES: This, the last time I'll talk with you ever.

ELECTRA: O my homeland, goodbye. Goodbye to you, women of home.

ORESTES: Most loyal of sisters, do you leave now?

ELECTRA: I leave with tears blurring all that I see.”
― Euripides, Electra

“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

“In childbirth grief begins.”
― Euripides, Medea

“I am at the end. I exist no more.”
― Sophocles, Electra

“By dread things I am compelled. I know that. I see the trap closing. I know what I am. But while life is in me I will not stop this violence. No. Oh my friends who is there to comfort me? Who understands? Leave me be, let me go, do not soothe me. This is a knot no one can untie. There will be no rest, there is no retrieval. No number exists for griefs like these.”
― Sophocles, Electra

“I am Cassandra—she who, without asking,
understood it all and still came to her fate,
I, Cassandra, full of visions,
who sees her own death without turning away,
and hears in the night the day that follows.”
― Gabriela Mistral, Madwomen: Poems of Gabriela Mistral

“You are young and young your rule and you think that the tower in which you live is free from sorrow: from it have I not seen two tyrants thrown? The third, who now is king, I shall yet live to see him fall, of all three most suddenly, most dishonored.”
― Aeschylus

“Because she—you hear her—she's calling,
and is always going to call, and it's better
both of us die by the dagger without anyone
seeing us, Orestes, and die a fit death.”
― Gabriela Mistral, Madwomen: Poems of Gabriela Mistral

“Orestes beloved. as you die you destroy me. You have torn away the part of my mind where hope was .”
― Sophocles, Electra

“Be happy, beloved face of my great friend. For us that is impossible, but you can be-we dead lack any source of delight”
― Euripides, Orestes

“How far you are from understanding
what my intentions are. May fruitful earth
refuse to take my blood and the bright sky
my spirit, if I ever betray you,
if I let myself go free and leave you.
I did the murder, too. I don't deny it.”
― Euripides, Orestes

“Last night was a night of bad dreams and ambiguous visions.”
― Sophocles, Electra

“Of people my own age, friends and relatives, you are my favorite.
You're all those things to me”
― Euripides, Orestes

“Not to me. Not when I'm looking after you”
― Euripides, Orestes

“Wohl dem, der seiner Väter gern gedenkt,
Der froh von ihren Taten, ihrer Größe,
Den Hörer unterhält und still sich freuend
Ans Ende dieser schönen Reihe sich
Geschlossen sieht!”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Iphigenie auf Tauris

“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”
― Josephine Angelini, Scions

“You blame my temper but you do not see your own that lives within you; so you chide me instead.” - Oedipus the King”
― Sophocles

“But this is ruin! New waves breaking in
To wreck us, ere we are righted from the old!”
― Euripides, Medea

“Are we Greeks, or are we barbarians?”
― Pietros Maneos

“This incarnation promised her a dance with Poseidon.”
― Alice Abyss, Pharmakides

“Fear no fear, Princess Sophie, because I will always be there to help you and your life.”
― Akshat Pathak, Sophie, I am happy...

“Coro:
Tenta moderar-te!
Não vês que teus ressentimentos
já te causam grandes mágoas?
Alimentando ódios
agravas o teu sofrimento com rancor demais;
é vão esforço resistir aos poderosos.

Electra:
Fatos terríveis me constrangem, terríveis!
Minha ira não se dissimula;
não poderei jamais calar diante de tal desventura!
Quem, generosas companheiras, quem de bom senso
exigirá de mim que dê ouvidos
a qualquer palavra de consolo?
Deixai-me!
Deixai-me, companheiras prestimosas!
Males iguais aos meus jamais terão remédio!
Jamais me livrarei de minhas mágoas,
de meus soluços incessantes!

Coro:
Mas é por bem-querer que te aconselho,
qual devotada mãe,
a não acrescentar desgraças a desgraça.

Electra:
Pode haver ponderação no desespero?”
― Sófocles, Electra