Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschyluswas an ancient Greek tragedian. His plays, alongside those of Sophocles and Euripides, are the only works of Classical Greek literature to have survived. He is often described as the father of tragedy: critics and scholars' knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in theater to allow conflict among them, whereas characters previously had interacted only...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPoet
power powerless
Excessive fear is always powerless.
positive wisdom world-suffering
Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
silence speech misery
I, schooled in misery, know many purifying rites, and I know where speech is proper and where silence.
doctors intelligence hunger
Bonds and the pangs of hunger are excellent prophet doctors for the wits.
suffering despair
Those who would learn must suffer. In our own despair, against our will, wisdom comes to us.
joy tears stealing
Joy steals upon me, such joy as calls forth tears.
winning wish athena
ATHENA: You wish to be called righteous rather than act right. [...] I say, wrong must not win by technicalities.
destiny men waiting
Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
doctors literature knows
Don't you know this, that words are doctors to a diseased temperment?
pain literature
What good is it to live a life that brings pains?
happiness death men
Call no man happy till he is dead.
trust spring heart
In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
funny wise stupid
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
believe men keeping-promises
It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.