Quotes by Playwrights - Page 113

I am determined that never, if I can help it,Shall evil triumph over good." - Creon
Sophocles
The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.
Honoré de Balzac
Though they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.
Jean Genet
If you know the North, you know where the South is; if you know the darkness, you know where the light is! Evil is an excellent compass to find the good!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,Few come within the compass of my curse,—Wherein I did not some notorious ill,As kill a man, or else devise his death,Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,Set deadly enmity between two friends,Make poor men's cattle break their necks;Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,And bid the owners quench them with their tears.Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful thingsAs willingly as one would kill a fly,And nothing grieves me heartily indeedBut that I cannot do ten thousand more.
William Shakespeare
The tyrant is a child of PrideWho drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity,Until from his high crest headlongHe plummets to the dust of hope.
Sophocles
In thy foul throat thou liest.
William Shakespeare
I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;'Twere better nothing would begin.Thus everything that that your terms, sin,Destruction, evil represent—That is my proper element.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ever since I realized there waz someone callt/ a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag/ i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness/ in somebody else's cup...
Ntozake Shange
My old man's a white old manAnd my old mother's black.If ever I cursed my white old manI take my curses back.If ever I cursed my black old motherAnd wished she were in hell,I'm sorry for that evil wishAnd now i wish her wellMy old man died in a fine big houseMy Ma died in a shack.I wonder were i'm going to die,Being neither white nor black?
Langston Hughes
What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?
Mikhail Bulgakov
My hate is general, I detest all men;Some because they are wicked and do evil,Others because they tolerate the wicked,Refusing them the active vigorous scornWhich vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.
Molière
But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.
Mikhail Bulgakov
Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.
T.S Eliot
There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.
Tom Stoppard
Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.
Derek Walcott
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mae West
All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
John Dryden
He who believes in the fate accepts the collar in his neck!
Mehmet Murat ildan
So you see, we are not free to choose our fate. There is a yoke to be borne and freedom is only an illusion. I am not free. God has put me here on earth for a reason.
Naomi Ragen
..What our contempt often hurls from us,We wish it our again; the present pleasure,By revolution lowering,does becomeThe opposite of itself..
William Shakespeare
The powe if fate is something terrible. It cannot be escaped--not with wealth or by war, not with a tower ir a sea-lashed black ship.
Sophocles
No one's fate is of any interest to you except your own.
Mikhail Bulgakov
Fate! This four-letter little word gave the biggest harm to mankind! We must totally get rid of this degrading concept of primitiveness!
Mehmet Murat ildan
We can't change our fate, because we can't change something which doesn't exist.
Mehmet Murat ildan
The tram’s fate is to travel only on its track. But for man, everywhere is a track; everywhere is his fate!
Mehmet Murat ildan
The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.
Wilsin Mizner
Tis Fate that flings the dice,And as she flingsOf kings makes peasants,And of peasants kings.
John Dryden
Just now I had a dream. I'll see you again. I know it. Beneath the falls.
Yukio Mishima
That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance.
Joseph Heller
Fortune’s a right whore:If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,That she may take away all at one swoop.
John Webster
Unto those who have,it shall,uncannily, be given.Unto those who have not,it shall,uncannily,be taken away.
Patrick Hamilton
The fate of the world depends on the triumph of the good people!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Only in youth does coincidence seem the same as fate. Later, we know that the real course of our lives is decided within us; our paths may seem to diverge from our wishes in a confused and pointless way, but in the end the way always leads us to our invisible destination.
Stefan Zweig
It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the rail, staring down, and he ceased to hear the music. They danced furiously. They danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone with sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the guard which people wear on their expression, the homage to convention, and he saw them now as they really were. In that moment of abandon they were strangely animal: some were foxy and some were wolflike; and others had the long, foolish face of sheep. Their skins were sallow from the unhealthy life the led and the poor food they ate. Their features were blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were shifty and cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and sordid thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of humanity. But they danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a rage for enjoyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive of human action urged them blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure. The were hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they knew not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats. Their eyes were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which was the worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes made all that crowd terrible and pathetic. Philip loathed them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite pity which filled him.He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out into the bitter coldness of the night.
W Somerset Maugham
It is always a great honor to be the driver of your own car, to be the boss of your own fate!
Mehmet Murat ildan
An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!
William Shakespeare
When a nation leaves the fate of his country to an ignorant and fool person, then that nation itself will be remembered in the history as ignorant and fool nation!
Mehmet Murat ildan
We are creatures taken seriously by the Earth, because we can severely affect the fate of the Earth, but we are in no way taken seriously by the Universe yet!
Mehmet Murat ildan
If you sleep on the train, you will miss your station; if you sleep at the station, you will miss your train! You can control your fate only when you are awake!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Fate goes ever as fate must.
Seamus Heaney
By walking on the right path, you create a golden fate for yourself and you also become a silver lining for the others!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Thus Time, and all-states-ordering CeremonyHad banished all offense: Time’s golden thighUpholds the flowery body of the earthIn sacred harmony, and every birthOf men and actions makes legitimate,Being used aright. The use of time is Fate.---From “Hero and Leander, Sestiad III
Christopher Marlowe
If you pursue this road that you've embarked upon, you will eventually come to moral decisions that will take you completely by surprise
Cormac McCarthy
Here is the fate of the man: To appear and to disappear!
Mehmet Murat ildan
He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.
Cormac McCarthy
Really," said Winifred suddenly; "it almost seems like Fate. Only that's so old-fashioned.
John Galsworthy
Whatever is, is in its causes just;But purblind manSees but a part o' th' chain; the nearest link;His eyes not carrying to that equal beamThat poises all above.
John Dryden
But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry (of life) will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge of the world that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
Cormac McCarthy
Anna Petrovna: I am beginning to think, doctor, that fate has cheated me. The majority of people, who maybe are no better than I am, are happy and pay nothing for that happiness. I have paid for everything, absolutely everything! And how dearly! Why have I paid such terrible interest?
Anton Chekhov
Fantastic fortune thou deceitful light,That cheats the weary traveler by night,Though on a precipice each step you tread,I am resolved to follow where you lead.
Aphra Behn
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,Rough-hew them how we will
William Shakespeare
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow worldLike a Colossus, and we petty menWalk under his huge legs and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonorable graves.Men at some time are masters of their fates.The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our starsBut in ourselves, that we are underlings.
William Shakespeare
He is where he is supposed to be. And yet the place he has found is also of his own choosing. That is a piece of luck not to be despised.
Cormac McCarthy
If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.
William Shakespeare
Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.
William Shakespeare
Oh, I am fortune's fool!
William Shakespeare
Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.
Friedrich Schiller
Though the gospel amnesty which grace proclaims makes no exceptions, for Divine grace has no limits, there are limits to the time within which the amnesty avails. And if sinners despise grace there is nothing for them but judgment, stern and inexorable.
Robert Anderson