No lie ever reaches old age.

Meaning of the quote

The quote means that lies don't last. Even the biggest, most convincing lies eventually get exposed and are no longer believed. The truth always comes out in the end, no matter how hard someone tries to hide it. Lies may seem powerful at first, but they can't stand the test of time.

About Sophocles

Sophocles was an ancient Greek tragedian who wrote over 120 plays, with seven surviving in complete form. He was the most celebrated playwright in Athens for almost 50 years, winning 24 out of 30 dramatic competitions he entered. Sophocles is known for his famous tragedies featuring Oedipus and Antigone, which are generally known as the Theban plays.

More about the author

More quotes from Sophocles

There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It’s impossible to speak what it is not noble to do.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Despair often breeds disease.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

The rewards of virtue alone abide secure.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Even a poor man can receive honors.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain?

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Old age and the passage of time teach all things.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is a time when even justice brings harm.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A day lays low and lifts up again all human things.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Success is dependent on effort.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A short saying often contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No one longs to live more than someone growing old.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Silence is an ornament for women.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Children are the anchors of a mother’s life.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A state is not a state if it belongs to one man.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is nothing more hateful than bad advice.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

God’s dice always have a lucky roll.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

To be doing good deeds is man’s most glorious task.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

When trouble ends even troubles please.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No one who errs unwillingly is evil.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A lie never lives to be old.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Better not to exist than live basely.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Who seeks shall find.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Look and you will find it – what is unsought will go undetected.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It’s a terrible thing to speak well and be wrong.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

For shameful deeds are taught by shameful deeds.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there’s no help in the truth.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No speech can stain what is noble by nature.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is no greater evil than anarchy.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

If it were possible to cure evils by lamentation and to raise the dead with tears, then gold would be a less valuable thing than weeping.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

You should not consider a man’s age but his acts.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Not even Ares battles against necessity.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Reason is God’s crowning gift to man.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Don’t you know that silence supports the accuser’s charge?

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Best to live lightly, unthinkingly.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A fearful man is always hearing things.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: “Thou shalt not ration justice.”

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A man growing old becomes a child again.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Not to be born is, past all prizing, best.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No man loves the bearer of bad tidings.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Evil gains work their punishment.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No enemy is worse than bad advice.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

I see the state of all of us who live, nothing more than phantoms or a weightless shadow.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Fortune raises up and fortune brings low both the man who fares well and the one who fares badly; and there is no prophet of the future for mortal men.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

To him who is in fear everything rustles.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No lie ever reaches old age.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It is best to live however one can be.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Isn’t it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies?

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is an ancient saying among men that you cannot thoroughly understand the life of mortals before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

All a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It is a base thing for a man among the people not to obey those in command. Never in a state can the laws be well administered when fear does not stand firm.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Wise thinkers prevail everywhere.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Evil counsel travels fast.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is no success without hardship.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

The dice of Zeus always fall luckily.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

For the dead there are no more toils.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Not even old age knows how to love death.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Without labor nothing prospers.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There is no witness so terrible and no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Trust dies but mistrust blossoms.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Enemies’ gifts are no gifts and do no good.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Ignorant men don’t know what good they hold in their hands until they’ve flung it away.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman’s excellence?

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

You win the victory when you yield to friends.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

To live without evil belongs only to the gods.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

Always desire to learn something useful.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A word does not frighten the man who, in acting, feels no fear.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

A human being is only breath and shadow.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright

I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow.

Sophocles

ancient Greek playwright