Who is Aeschylus
Aeschylus was a Greek playwright, who was known as a tragedian. He was born around 525 BC and died around 456 BC. He is widely credited with starting the tragedy genre and many academics and artists have stated that their knowledge of this subject starts with and is shaped by the surviving evidence of his plays. A famous remark by Artistotle helps us to understand just how he changed the face of theatre, as it was stated that Aeschylus increased how many characters were in a play and their interaction with each other, in particular conflict. Something that was relatively unheard of previously, as these characters would normally only interact with the chorus.
Sadly, only seven of his plays have survived, with many quotations and clues discovered on Egyptian papyrus. What is known is that he was one of the first protagonists of showing plays as a trilogy and also that his work touched on contemporary themes, such as the second invasion of Greece by the Persians. Despite most of his 70 plus plays being lost, critics generally view his work with acclaim, in particular the play Oresteia.
Aeschylus Quotes
1.Don’t you know this, that words are doctors to a diseased temperment?
2.Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?
3.The wisest of the wise may err.
4.It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.
5.I know how men in exile feed on dreams.
6.It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.
7.It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
8.Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
9.There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.
10.It is always in season for old men to learn.
11.God loves to help him who strives to help himself.
12.Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
13.When a man’s willing and eager the god’s join in.
14.To be free from evil thoughts is God’s best gift.
15.I would rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evils.
16.In every tyrant’s heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
17.It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
18.Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
19.Everyone’s quick to blame the alien.
20.There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls
21.Time brings all things to pass.
22.The man whose authority is recent is always stern.
23.When a match has equal partners then I fear not.
24.Death is softer by far than tyranny.
25.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.
26.Too few rejoice at a friend’s good fortune.
27.Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
28.Excessive fear is always powerless.
29.God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.
30.There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
31.Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.
32.Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.
33.Only when a man’s life comes to its end in prosperity dare we pronounce him happy.
34.Ah, lives of men! When prosperous they glitter – Like a fair picture; when misfortune comes – A wet sponge at one blow has blurred the painting.
35.Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another’s might.
36.We must pronounce him fortunate who has ended his life in fair prosperity.
37.For a murderous blow let murderous blow atone.
38.You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense.
39.For the impious act begets more after it, like to the parent stock.
40.Unions in wedlock are perverted by the victory of shameless passion that masters the female among men and beasts.
41.Since long I’ve held silence a remedy for harm.
42.The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.
43.For somehow this disease inheres in tyranny, never to trust one’s friends.
44.God’s most lordly gift to man is decency of mind.
45.Time as he grows old teaches all things.
46.It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
47.What is there more kindly than the feeling between host and guest?
48.His resolve is not to seem the bravest, but to be.
49.And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin.
50.It is a light thing for whoever keeps his foot outside trouble to advise and counsel him that suffers.
51.What exists outside is a man’s concern; let no woman give advice; and do no mischief within doors.
52.It is good even for old men to learn wisdom.
53.The evils of mortals are manifold; nowhere is trouble of the same wing seen.
54.We shall perish by guile just as we slew.
55.A god implants in mortal guilt whenever he wants utterly to confound a house.
56.In the lack of judgment great harm arises, but one vote cast can set right a house.
57.I willingly speak to those who know, but for those who do not know I forget.
58.I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.
59.If you pour oil and vinegar into the same vessel, you would call them not friends but opponents.
60.For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.
