Silence is an ornament for women.
SophoclesRead
There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.
Interpretation
What this quote means
One should refrain from judging a person's life until after their death, as true value is revealed over time.
This quote by Sophocles reminds us that life's journey is complex and that the true worth of a person's existence can often only be understood in retrospect. Assessing someoneβs life solely based on immediate circumstances may lead to inaccurate conclusions, as individuals evolve and their impact may unfold in unexpected ways over time.
Themes
JudgmentLifePerspectiveWorthReflection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a eulogy to reflect on a life well-lived.
More from Sophocles
All quotes βNone love the messenger who brings bad news.
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All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
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Not even Ares battles against necessity.
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You clearly hate to yield, but you will regret it when your anger has passed. Such natures are justly the hardest for themselves to bear.
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There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.
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Similar quotes
A society whose members are united by the fact that they think in the same way in regard to the sacred world and its relations with the profane world, and by the fact that they translate these common ideas into common practices, is what is called a Church. In all history, we do not find a single religion without a Church.
Emile DurkheimRead
I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.
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There is no holy life. There is no war between good and evil. There is no sin and no redemption. None of these things matter to the real you. But they all matter hugely to the false you, the one who believes in the separate self. You have tried to take your separate self, with all its loneliness and anxiety and pride, to the door of enlightenment. But it will never go through, because it is a ghost.
Deepak ChopraRead
Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we always come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.
EpicurusRead
Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.
Sam HarrisRead
Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead