"A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick"
About this Quote
Wisdom here isn`t a halo; it`s triage. Sophocles frames conversation as a moral and civic act, not a hobby. To "chatter" is already a loaded verb: idle talk, social noise, the kind of speech that flatters itself as discourse while doing nothing but spread contagion. The wise man, in this formulation, refuses to lend his voice to a mind that`s "sick" - not out of delicacy, but out of self-preservation and public responsibility. Attention is a resource; giving it away can be complicity.
The subtext is recognizably Sophoclean: speech can be fate. In the tragedies, catastrophe often arrives through insistence, argument, and the refusal to step away. A "sick mind" isn`t just mentally unwell in the modern clinical sense; it`s morally disordered, possessed by hubris, paranoia, or obsession. Think of rulers who mistake counsel for insult, or prophets whose warnings get heard as provocation. The wise person recognizes when dialogue has ceased to be reciprocal and has become a trap.
Contextually, this sits inside a Greek world where the city is held together by persuasion - the chorus, the assembly, the courtroom. Sophocles is wary of rhetoric`s dark twin: the kind of talk that turns reason into theatre and pulls others into its delusion. The line isn`t a feel-good endorsement of silence; it`s a sharp boundary: don`t dignify dysfunction with banter, don`t imagine you can heal every fever with eloquence, and don`t confuse engagement with virtue.
The subtext is recognizably Sophoclean: speech can be fate. In the tragedies, catastrophe often arrives through insistence, argument, and the refusal to step away. A "sick mind" isn`t just mentally unwell in the modern clinical sense; it`s morally disordered, possessed by hubris, paranoia, or obsession. Think of rulers who mistake counsel for insult, or prophets whose warnings get heard as provocation. The wise person recognizes when dialogue has ceased to be reciprocal and has become a trap.
Contextually, this sits inside a Greek world where the city is held together by persuasion - the chorus, the assembly, the courtroom. Sophocles is wary of rhetoric`s dark twin: the kind of talk that turns reason into theatre and pulls others into its delusion. The line isn`t a feel-good endorsement of silence; it`s a sharp boundary: don`t dignify dysfunction with banter, don`t imagine you can heal every fever with eloquence, and don`t confuse engagement with virtue.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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