Silence is an ornament for women.
SophoclesRead
Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the human tendency to prioritize wealth over other aspects of life.
Sophocles highlights a universal truth about human nature, suggesting that regardless of the length of one's life, the pursuit of wealth often overshadows other important values and experiences. The statement illustrates how many individuals consistently chase material gain, placing it above relationships, achievements, and personal fulfillment.
In practice
During a lecture on human behavior, one might use the quote to illustrate the obsession with materialism.
Silence is an ornament for women.
None love the messenger who brings bad news.
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.
Not even Ares battles against necessity.
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.
There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.
To provide employment for the poor, and support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority.
A gift in season is a double favor to the needy.
If nationalism makes us poor, weak, and morally insecure, how can it claim to be patriotic? I maintain that nationalists are unpatriotic.
The simplest way of understanding justice is giving people what they deserve. This idea goes back to Aristotle. The real difficulty begins with figuring out who deserves what and why.
Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.
Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery—in morals, in art or in spirituality—the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure.
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