Aeschylus Quotes on God (21 Quotes)

A state that is prosperous always honors the gods.

Success is man's god.

The worst enemy is one that fears the gods.

Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?

Good fortune is a god among men, and more than a god.

Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.

I pray the gods some respite from the weary task of this long year's watch that lying on the Atreidae's roof on bended arm, dog- like, I have kept, marking the conclave of all night's stars, those potentates blazing in the heavens that bring winter and summer to mortal men, the constellations, when they wane, when they rise.

Of all the gods only death does not desire gifts.

Whenever a man makes haste, God too hastens with him.

God loves to help him who strives to help himself.

Drop, drop in our sleep, upon the heart sorrow falls, memory's pain, and to us, though against our very will, even in our own despite, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God. The above lines are from Edith Hamilton, translator, Three Greek Plays, p. 170 (1937). Other translations of this passage from Aeschylus vary. Robert F. Kennedy, delivering an extemporaneous eulogy to Martin Luther King, Jr., the evening of April 4, 1968, in Indianapolis, Indiana, said, 'Aeschylus wrote 'In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' These words, lacking 'own,' have been used as one of the inscriptions at the Robert F. Kennedy gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery.

Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.

God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.

God always strives together with those who strive.

God is not averse to deceit in a holy cause.

Ask the gods nothing excessive.

For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.

Who apart from the gods is without pain for his whole lifetime's length?

High fortune, this in man's eye is god and more than god is this.

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

Only one accomplishment is beyond both the power and the mercy of the Gods. They cannot make the past as though it had never been.