Greek dramatist (525 B.C.-456 B.C.)
The man who does ill, ill must suffer too.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Still to the sufferer comes, as due from God, a glory that to suffering owes its birth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Thou needs must spit it out and make clean thy mouth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
It would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall;
There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over all,
And wild is the war-god's breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs,
And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!
AESCHYLUS
The Seven Against Thebes
Ask the gods nothing excessive.
AESCHYLUS
The Suppliant Women
Respect the altar of Justice and do not, looking to profit, dishonor it by spurning with godless foot; for punishment will come upon you.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
No one can count the terrors that the earth spawns, catastrophic, gruesome, and the vast arms of the sea swarm with brute monsters bent on harm, and everywhere between the sky and ground lights bloom by day in flares and sudden bolts; and birds and beasts alike can tell of the whirlwind's whirling wrath.
AESCHYLUS
Libation Bearers
Death hath a fairer fame than a life of toil.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Ixion
Not for laggards doth a contest wait.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Glaukos Potnieus
Words are the parents of a causeless wrath.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Joy steals upon me, such joy as calls forth tears.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
God ever works with those that work with will.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Nor does night conceal men's deeds of ill, but whatsoe'er thou dost, think that some God beholds it.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
The burning gaze of a young woman, such as hath tasted man, shall not escape me; for I have a spirit keen to mark these things.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Toxotides
For a single path leads to the house of Hades.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Telephos
Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
The popular voice has much potency.
AESCHYLUS
Agamemnon
Chanting aloud in realms below
The dead are wroth;
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.
AESCHYLUS
The Libation Bearers