Oedipus The King Quotes

The pain we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all.

They are dying, the old oracles sent to Laius, now our masters strike them off the rolls. Nowhere Apollo's golden glory now -- the gods, the gods go down.

(...) I, for one, prize less The name of king than deeds of kingly power; And so would all who learn in wisdom’s school.

King as thou art, free speech at least is mine. To make reply; in this I am thy peer.

Sentry: King, may I speak? Creon: Your very voice distresses me. Sentry: Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience? Creon: By God, he wants to analyze me now! Sentry: It is not what I say, but what has been done, that hurts you. Creon: You talk too much.

To a terrible place which men’s ears             may not hear of, nor their eyes see it.

Of all ill, Self-chosen sorrows are the worst to bear.

The novelist is condemned to wander all his life. Homeless and blind like Oedipus he wanders until death. And so let us protect the novelist and adore him, with pity, honor, and love.

Prometheus: Yes, I stopped mortals from foreseeing their doom. Chorus: What cure did you discover for that sickness? Prometheus: I sowed in them blind hopes.

Your edict, King, was strong, But all your strength is weakness itself against The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were, and shall be, Operative for ever, beyond man utterly. I knew I must die, even without your decree: I am only mortal. And if I must die Now, before it is my time to die, Surely this is no hardship: can anyone Living, as I live, with evil all about me, Think Death less than a friend?

Comply, and fear not, for my load of woe Is incommunicable to all but me.

What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy.

Good news. I tell you even the hardest things to bear, if they should turn out well, all would be well.

The pains we inflict upon ourselves hurt most most of all.

Rose the joint evil that is now o’erflowing. And the old happiness in that past day Was truly happy, but the present hour Hath pain, crime, ruin:—whatsoe’er of ill Mankind have named, not one is absent here.

just thinking of all your days to come, the bitterness, the life that rough mankind will thrust upon you.

Blind, lost in the night, endless night that nursed you!

Who would choose uneasy dreams to don a crown when all the kingly sway can be enjoyed without?

Kings hate to hear the things they order spoken.

Time alone can bring the just man to light - the criminal you can spot in just one short day.

So, when I am nothing—then am I a man?

Look through all humanity: you’ll never find a man on earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.

Acceptance—that is the great lesson suffering teaches,

Mortal man must always look to his ending. And none can be called happy until that day when he carries his happiness down to the grave in peace." - Sophocles

I say that you live blindly in hideous shame with those you love most. You don’t see the evil that you have made your own.

Well, I will start afresh and once again Make dark things clear.

Oed. Must I not fear my mother’s marriage-bed?

No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

Are you quite finished? It’s your turn to listen for just as long as you’ve ... instructed me. Hear me out, then judge me on the facts.

I think you’re insane.

What if you’re wholly wrong?

Have you no sense? Poor misguided men, such shouting—why this public outburst? Aren’t you ashamed, with the land so sick, to stir up private quarrels?

Aren’t you ashamed, with the land so sick, to stir up private quarrels?

If he cannot reap his profits fairly cannot restrain himself from outrage— mad, laying hands on the holy things untouchable!

O the generations of men the dying generations—adding the total of all your lives I find they come to nothing

does there exist, is there a man on earth who seizes more joy than just a dream, a vision?

You are my great example, you, your life your destiny, Oedipus, man of misery— I count no man blest.

I tell you neither the waters of the Danube nor the Nile can wash this palace clean.

all done with a will. The pains we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all.

never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness—blind!

Now, in this one day, wailing, madness and doom, death, disgrace,

No, I can’t repeat it, it’s unholy.

No wonder you suffer twice over, the pain of your wounds, the lasting grief of pain.

Dear friend, still here? Standing by me, still with a care for me, the blind man?

What superhuman power drove you on? OEDIPUS: Apollo, friends, Apollo— he ordained my agonies—these, my pains on pains!

But the hand that struck my eyes was mine, mine atone—no one else— I did it all myself! What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy.

Pitiful, you suffer so, you understand so much ... I wish you had never known.

If I’d died then, I’d never have dragged myself, my loved ones through such hell.

I, with my eyes, how could I look my father in the eyes when I go down to death?

Don’t let them go begging, abandoned, women without men.

Never bring them down to the level of my pains.

Pray for life, my children, live where you are free to grow and season

Time is the great healer, you will see.

I try to say what I mean; it’s my habit.

Still the king, the master of all things? No more: here your power ends.

None of your power follows you through life.

Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

Many years have passed since OEDIPUS solved the riddle of the Sphinx and ascended the throne of Thebes, and now a plague has struck the city.

raging plague in all its vengeance, devastating the house of Cadmus!

Banish the man, or pay back blood with blood. Murder sets the plague-storm on the city.

Burn that god of death that all gods hate!

How terrible—to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees! I knew it well, but I put it from my mind, else I never would have come.

None of you knows— and I will never reveal my dreadful secrets, not to say your own.

The truth with all its power lives inside me.

True, it is not your fate to fall at my hands. Apollo is quite enough,

you’ll pay in tears, I promise you, for this, this witch-hunt.

You with your precious eyes, you’re blind to the corruption of your life,

Soon, soon you’ll scream aloud—what haven won’t reverberate?

This day will bring your birth and your destruction.

But now I have a right to learn from you as you just learned from me.

No one with any sense of self-control.

A man of sense, someone who sees things clearly would never resort to treason.

Time alone can bring the just man to light— the criminal you can spot in one short day.

Look at you, sullen in yielding, brutal in your rage— you will go too far. It’s perfect justice: natures like yours are hardest on themselves

Pride breeds the tyrant violent pride, gorging, crammed to bursting with all that is overripe and rich with ruin— clawing up to the heights, headlong pride

crashes down the abyss—sheer doom! No footing helps, all foothold lost and gone.

A light tip of the scales can put old bones to rest.

How, how could the furrows your father plowed bear you, your agony, harrowing on in silence O so long?

O the terror— the suffering, for all the world to see, the worst terror that ever met my eyes. What madness swept over you?

so much fascinates my eyes, but you ... I shudder at the sight.

What love, what call of the heart can touch my ears with joy? Nothing, friends.

Oblivion—what a blessing ... for the mind to dwell a world away from pain.

so I believed—what a handsome prince you raised— under the skin, what sickness to the core.

you brought my sperm rising back, springing to light fathers, brothers, sons—one murderous breed— brides, wives, mothers.

The blackest things a man can do, I have done them all!

I haven’t come to mock you, Oedipus, or to criticize your former failings.

By all means. And this time, I assume, even you will obey the god’s decrees.

Mother and father marked out that rock to be my everlasting tomb—buried alive. Let me die there, where they tried to kill me.

Oh but this I know: no sickness can destroy me,

your own father’s hands that served his once bright eyes so well— that made them blind.

Seeing nothing, children, knowing nothing, I became your father,

Home you’ll come, in tears, cut off from the sight of it all, the brilliant rites unfinished.

who will he be, my dear ones? Risking all to shoulder the curse that weighs down my parents, yes and you too—that wounds us all together

yes and you too—that wounds us all together

You criticize my temper ... unaware of the one you live with, you revile me.

Only fools think that they alone Are wise, and hear no other point of view. À wise man is never ashamed to learn, To listen, and bend when the time is right. When a flood sweeps through a forest, the trees That bend survive, keep every leaf intact; The ones that don't snap off and are swept away. A wise man knows when to slacken sail; À fool refuses and overturns his ship.

But if any man comes striding, high and mighty in all he says and does, no fear of justice, no reverence for the temples of the gods— let a rough doom tear him down, repay his pride, breakneck, ruinous pride!

You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege too. I am not your slave. I serve Apollo. I don't need Creon to speak for me in public. So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption in your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light! Soon, soon, you'll scream aloud - what haven won't reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won't scream back in echo? That day you learn the truth about your marriage, the wedding-march that sang you into your halls, the lusty voyage home to the fatal harbor! And a crowd of other horrors you'd never dream will level you with yourself and all your children. There. Now smear us with insults - Creon, myself and every word I've said. No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

You, you’ll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness—blind!

For if there are no waving flags and marching songs at the barricades as Walter marches out with his little battalion, it is not because the battle lacks nobility. On the contrary, he has picked up in his way, still imperfect and wobbly in his small view of human destiny, what I believe Arthur Miller once called "the golden threat of history." He becomes, in spite of those who are too intrigued with despair and hatred of man to see it, King Oedipus refusing to tear out his eyes, but attacking the Oracle instead. He is that last Jewish patriot manning his rifle at Warsaw; he is that young girl who swam into sharks to save a friend a few weeks ago; he is Anne Frank, still believing in people; he is the nine small heroes of Little Rock; he is Michelangelo creating David and Beethoven bursting forth with the Ninth Symphony. He is all those things because he has finally reached out in his tiny moment and caught that sweet essence which is human dignity, and it shines like the old star-touched dream that it is in his eyes.