Antigone Quotes

I have longer
to please the dead than please the living here:
in the kingdom down below I'll lie forever.

I will suffer
nothing as great as death without glory.

And speech and thought, quick as the wind
and the mood and mind for law that rules the city—
all these he has taught himself
and shelter from the arrows of the frost
when there's rough lodging under the cold clear sky
and the shafts of lashing rain—
ready, resourceful man!
Never without resources
never an impasse as he marches on the future—
only Death, from Death alone he will find no rescue
but from desperate plagues ha has plotted his escapes.

Like father like daughter,
passionate, wild…
she hasn't learned to bend before adversity.

Blest, they are truly blest who all their lives
have never tasted devastation. For others, once
the gods have rocked a house to its foundations
the ruin will never cease, cresting on and on
from one generation on throughout the race—
like a great mounting tide
driven on by savage northern gales,
surging over the dead black depths
roiling up from the bottom dark heaves of sand
and the headlands, taking the storm's onslaught full-force,
roar, and the low moaning
echoes on and on

Spit her out,
like a mortal enemy—let the girl go.
Let her find a husband down among the dead.

Anarchy!—
show me a greater crime in all the earth!

Whoever thinks that he alone possesses intelligence,
the gift of eloquence, he and no one else,
and character too…such men, I tell you,
spread them open—you will find them empty.

Am I to rule this land for others—or myself?

What a splendid king you'd make of a desert island—you and you alone.

Love, you mock us for your sport.

I go to wed the lord of the dark waters.

You went too far, the last limits of daring—
smashing against the high throne of Justice!
Your life's in ruins, child—I wonder…
do you pay for your father's terrible ordeal?

If a man could wail his own dirge before he dies,
he'd never finish.

But if these men are wrong, let them suffer
nothing worse than they mete out to me—
these masters of injustice!

Still the same rough winds, the wild passion
raging through the girl.

Then reflect, my son: you are poised,
once more, on the razor-edge of fate.

These arrows for your heart! Since you've raked me
I loose them like an archer in my anger,
arrows deadly true. You'll never escape their
burning, searing force.

Take me away, quickly, out of sight.
I don't even exist—I'm no one. Nothing.

The mighty words of the proud are paid in full
with mighty blows of fate, and at long last
those blows will teach us wisdom.