Play by Euripides. It is in GB Volume 5. Newsletter post: https://www.readgreatbooks.info/p/great-books-ep-80-euripides-heracleidae

Heracleidae

Metadata

People in the play

Highlights

  • Surely thou wilt get an evil name from the citizens, if for the sake of an old man with one foot in the grave, a mere shadow I may say, and for these children, thou wilt plunge into troublous waters. (View Highlight)
  • excessive praise is apt to breed disgust; (View Highlight)
  • A temple of the gods is an asylum open to the world. (View Highlight)
  • Children have no fairer prize than this, the being born of a good and noble sire, and the power to wed from noble families; (View Highlight)
  • whoso is enslaved by passion and makes a lowborn match, I cannot praise for leaving to his children a legacy of shame, to gratify himself. (View Highlight)
  • For noble birth offers a stouter resistance to adversity than base parentage (View Highlight)
  • the man who thinks he knows good generalship must see the foe not by messengers alone. (View Highlight)
  • Now I, though in your cause I am as zealous as thou seest, yet will not slay my child, nor will I compel any of my subjects to do so against his will; (View Highlight)
  • Why, cruel hope, didst thou then cheer my heart, though thou didst not mean to make the boon complete? (View Highlight)
  • wise men ought to pray to get a wise man for their foe, and not a proud senseless fool; for so, even if by fortune flouted, one would meet with much consideration. (View Highlight)
  • Without the will of heaven none is blest, none curst, I do maintain; nor doth the same house for ever tread the path of bliss; for one kind of fortune follows hard upon another; one man it brings to naught from his high estate, another though of no account it crowns with happiness. (View Highlight)
  • bear what heaven sends, and set a limit to thy soul’s grief; (View Highlight)
  • virtue’s path leads through troublous ways. (View Highlight)
  • Mere looks can wound no one, if the arm do naught. (View Highlight)
  • For numerous is the offspring of Fate, that bringeth all to pass, and of Time, the son of Cronos. (View Highlight)