The Oedipus Cycle Quotes

“None of your power follows you through life.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Still the king, the master of all things?
No more: here your power ends.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“I try to say what I mean; it’s my habit.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Not I. Only the gods can give you that.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Time is the great healer, you will see.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Pray for life, my children,
live where you are free to grow and season”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Never bring them down to the level of my pains.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Don’t let them go begging, abandoned,
women without men.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“yes and you too—that wounds us all together”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“who will he be, my dear ones? Risking all
to shoulder the curse that weighs down my parents,
yes and you too—that wounds us all together”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Home you’ll come,
in tears, cut off from the sight of it all,
the brilliant rites unfinished.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Seeing nothing, children,
knowing nothing, I became your father,”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“your own father’s hands
that served his once bright eyes so well—
that made them blind.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Oh but this I know: no sickness can destroy me,”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Mother and father marked out that rock
to be my everlasting tomb—buried alive.
Let me die there, where they tried to kill me.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“By all means. And this time, I assume,
even you will obey the god’s decrees.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“I haven’t come to mock you, Oedipus,
or to criticize your former failings.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“The blackest things
a man can do, I have done them all!”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“you brought my sperm rising back, springing to light
fathers, brothers, sons—one murderous breed—
brides, wives, mothers.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“so I believed—what a handsome prince you raised—
under the skin, what sickness to the core.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Oblivion—what a blessing ...
for the mind to dwell a world away from pain.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“I’d wall up my loathsome body like a prison,
blind to the sound of life, not just the sight.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“All men must cast away the great blasphemer,
the curse now brought to light by the gods,
the son of Laius—I, my father’s son!”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Worse yet,
the sight of my children, born as they were born,
how could I long to look into their eyes?”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“I, with my eyes,
how could I look my father in the eyes
when I go down to death?”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“What grief can crown this grief?
It’s mine alone, my destiny—I am Oedipus!”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“If I’d died then, I’d never have dragged myself,
my loved ones through such hell.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“Pitiful, you suffer so, you understand so much ...
I wish you had never known.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“cast me away, my friends—
this great murderous ruin, this man cursed to heaven,
the man the deathless gods hate most of all!”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

“What love, what call of the heart
can touch my ears with joy? Nothing, friends.”
― Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus