Aeschylus Quotes

“For many men value appearances more than reality—thus they violate what’s right. Everyone’s prepared to sigh over some suffering man, though no sorrow really eats their hearts, or they can pretend to join another person’s happiness forcing their faces into smiling masks. But a good man discerns true character— he’s not fooled by eyes feigning loyalty, favouring him with watered-down respect.”
― Aeschylus, Agamemnon

“Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. “Immortality” may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.”
― G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology

“Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been written by uninspired men? that the assistance of God was necessary to produce these books? Is it possible that Galilei ascertained the mechanical principles of 'Virtual Velocity,' the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that Copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for all celestial phenomena; that Kepler discovered his three laws—discoveries of such importance that the 8th of May, 1618, may be called the birth-day of modern science; that Newton gave to the world the Method of Fluxions, the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the Decomposition of Light; that Euclid, Cavalieri, Descartes, and Leibniz, almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of Galvani, Volta, Franklin and Morse, of Trevithick, Watt and Fulton and of all the pioneers of progress—that all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the Pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite God? Is it possible that the codes of China, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded in the Pentateuch were alone given by God? Is it possible that Æschylus and Shakespeare, Burns, and Beranger, Goethe and Schiller, and all the poets of the world, and all their wondrous tragedies and songs are but the work of men, while no intelligence except the infinite God could be the author of the Pentateuch? Is it possible that of all the books that crowd the libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history and song, that all save only one, have been produced by man? Is it possible that of all these, the bible only is the work of God?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“The tragic style of Aeschylus (I use the word "style" in the sense it receives in sculpture, and not in the exclusive signification of the manner of writing,) is grand, severe, and not unfrequently hard: that of Sophocles is marked by the most finished symmetry and harmonious gracefulness: that of Euripides is soft and luxuriant; overflowing in his easy copiousness, he often sacrifices the general effect to brilliant passages. The analogies which the undisturbed development of the fine arts among the Greeks everywhere furnishes, will enable us, throughout to compare the epochs of tragic art with those of sculpture. Aeschylus is the Phidias of Tragedy, Sophocles her Polycletus, and Euripides her Lysippus. Phidias formed sublime images of the gods, but lent them an extrinsic magnificence of material, and surrounded their majestic repose with images of the most violent struggles in strong relief. Polycletus carried his art to perfection of proportion, and hence one of his statues was called the Standard of Beauty. Lysippus distinguished himself by the fire of his works; but in his time Sculpture had deviated from its original destination, and was much more desirous of expressing the charm of motion and life than of adhering to ideality of form.”
― August Wilhelm Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

“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 what to know
Except pain.
And this is how the gods declare their love.
Truth comes with pain.”
― Aeschylus

“There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls. There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.”
― Aeschylus, The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides

“Clytemnestra could not with propriety have been portrayed as a frail seduced woman—she must appear with the features of that heroic age, so rich in bloody catastrophes, in which all passions were violent, and men, both in good and evil, surpassed the ordinary standard of later and more degenerated ages. What is more revolting—what proves a deeper degeneracy of human nature, than horrid crimes conceived in the bosom of cowardly effeminacy? If such crimes are to be portrayed by the poet, he must neither seek to palliate them, nor to mitigate our horror and aversion of them.”
― August Wilhelm Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

“But you cannot speak of any glory for happenings that are at once evil and held in dishonor.”
― Aeschylus, The Seven Against Thebes

“Time shell be the limit of my suffering.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“But concern not thou thyself vainly with matters that are of no advantage.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“Thy tongue sounds in accordance with thy form. (Vulcan)”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“Commander against commander, brother against brother, enemy against enemy, I will take my stand. Quick, bring my greaves to protect against spears and stones!”
― Aeschylus, The Seven Against Thebes

“Thou beholdest a spectacle ill-sighted to the eye. (Vulcan)”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes

“Seek to persuade the sea wave not to break.
You will persuade me no more easily.”
― Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

“Not sights! These terrors are real! The mother's curse, the hellhounds of hate, they are here!”
― Aeschylus, Oresteia