Aeschylus was an ancient Greek author of Greek tragedy and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academics’ knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Before this, characters interacted only with the chorus. These Aeschylus quotes will motivate you.
Best Aeschylus Quotes
- “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” ~ Aeschylus
- “For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.” ~ Aeschylus
- “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” ~ Aeschylus
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“In war, truth is the first casualty.” ~ Aeschylus
- “The truth Has to be melted out of our stubborn lives By suffering. Nothing speaks the truth, Nothing tells us how things really are, Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain. And this is how the gods declare their love.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Be it mine to draw from wisdom’s fount, pure as it flows, that calm of soul which virtue only knows.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain” ~ Aeschylus
- “Fear is stronger than arms.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Only through suffering do we learn” ~ Aeschylus , Aeschylus quotes on suffering
- “For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another’s happiness.” ~ Aeschylus
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“Wiles and deceit are female qualities.” ~ Aeschylus
- “God loves to help him who strives to help himself.” ~ Aeschylus
- “It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Simple is the speech of truth.” ~ Aeschylus
- “It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.” ~ Aeschylus
- “When a man takes the road to destruction, the gods help him along.” ~ Aeschylus
- “You shall learn, though late, the lesson of how to be discreet.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Memory is the mother of all wisdom.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Many among men are they who set high the show of honor, yet break justice.” ~ Aeschylus
- “In every tyrant’s heart, there springs, in the end, this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.” ~ Aeschylus
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“Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.” ~ Aeschylus
- “There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.” ~ Aeschylus
- “It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Whoever is just willingly and without compulsion will not lack happiness; he will never be utterly destroyed.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Many men who transgress justice, honor appearance over reality.” ~ Aeschylus
- “The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Call no man happy till he is dead.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Oh, it is easy for the one who stands outside the prison-wall of pain to exhort and teach the one who suffers.” ~ Aeschylus
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“My will is mine…I shall not make it soft for you.” ~ Aeschylus
- “God’s most lordly gift to man is decency of mind.” ~ Aeschylus
- “It is the nature of mortals to kick a fallen man.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favors come to us from gods.” ~ Aeschylus - “Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.” ~ Aeschylus
- “The act of evil breeds others to follow, young sins in its own likeness.” ~ Aeschylus
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“The wisest of the wise may err.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Don’t try to make intelligent decisions when your brain is hyped” ~ Aeschylus
- “The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Self-will in the man who does not reckon wisely is by itself the weakest of all things.” ~ Aeschylus , Aeschylus quotes on self will
- “Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Alas for the affairs of men! When they are fortunate you might compare them to a shadow; and if they are unfortunate, a wet sponge with one dash wipes the picture away.” ~ Aeschylus
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“By Time and Age full many things are taught.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Remember to be submissive, thou art an alien, a fugitive, and in need.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Justice shines in very smoky homes, and honors the righteous, but the gold-spangled mansions where the hands are unclean she leaves with eyes averted.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Honor modesty more than your life.” ~ Aeschylus
- “The high strength of men knows no content with limitation.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Nor does night conceal men’s deeds of ill, but whatsoe’er thou dost, think that some God beholds it.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Human prosperity never rests but always craves more, till blown up with pride it totters and falls. From the opulent mansions pointed at by all passers-by, none warns it away, none cries, ‘Let no more riches enter!’.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast, He dieth not, unless the appointed time, The limit of his life’s span, coincide; Nor does the man who by the hearth at home Sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees.” ~ Aeschylus
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“There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.” ~ Aeschylus
- “May dawn, as the proverb goes, bring happy tidings coming from her mother night.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Against necessity, against its strength, no one can fight and win.” ~ Aeschylus
- “For wherein is life sweet to him who suffers grief?” ~ Aeschylus
- “Time brings all things to pass.” ~ Aeschylus , Aeschylus quotes on time
- “Even the old should learn.” ~ Aeschylus
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“Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Mourn for me rather as living than as dead.” ~ Aeschylus
- “And now it goes as it goes and where it ends is Fate. And neither by singeing flesh nor tipping cups of wine nor shedding burning tears can you enchant away the rigid Fury.” ~ Aeschylus
- “If you are not envied, you are not enviable.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Whoever is new to power is always harsh.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Death is easier than a wretched life, and better never to have born than to live and fare badly.” ~ Aeschylus
- “I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year’s watch that lying on the Atreidae’s roof on bent arm, dog-like, I have kept, marking the conclave of all night’s stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane when they rise.” ~ Aeschylus
- “Reverence for parents” stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.” ~ Aeschylus
