Antigone

by Sophocles

A man who thinks that only he is wise, that he can speak and think like no one else, when such men are exposed, then all can see their emptiness inside. For any man, [710] even if he’s wise, there’s nothing shameful in learning many things, staying flexible. You notice how in winter floods the trees which bend before the storm preserve their twigs. The ones who stand against it are destroyed, root and branch. In the same way, those sailors 810 who keep their sails stretched tight, never easing off, make their ship capsize—and

By yourself you’d make an excellent king but in a desert.

For when a man has lost what gives him pleasure, I don’t include him among the living—he’s a breathing corpse. Pile up a massive fortune in your home, if that’s what you want—live like a king. 1300 If there’s no pleasure in it, I’d not give to any man a vapour’s shadow for it, [1170] not compared to human joy.