"Aeschylus I define to have been a truly gigantic man (I mean by this much more than the mere trivial figure of elocution usually expressed by the word gigantic), one of the largest characters ever known, and all whose movements are clumsy and huge, like those of a son of Anak. In short, his character is just that of Prometheus himself as he has described him. I know no more pleasant thing than to study Aeschylus. You fancy that you hear the old dumb rocks speaking to you of all things they had been thinking of since the world began, in their wild, savage utterances."

“Aeschylus is above all things the poet of righteousness. "But in any wise, I say unto thee, revere thou the altar of righteousness": this is the crowning admonition of his doctrine, as its crowning prospect is the reconciliation or atonement of the principle of retribution with the principle of redemption, of the powers of the mystery of darkness with the coeternal forces of the spirit of wisdom, of the lord of inspiration and of light.”

“I regard the Oresteia as probably on the whole the greatest spiritual work of man.”

“The tragic style of Aeschylus is stillimperfect. Now and then its constituents,epic and lyric, are not properly fused.He is often abrupt, immoderate, hard.To succeed him with a more artful tragedywas easy; in his almost superhumangreatness he is likely to remain unexcelled. . . .”

“Tragoedias primus in lucem Aeschylus protulit, sublimis et gravis et grandilocus saepe usque ad vitium, sed rudis in plerisque et incompositus: propter quod correctas eius fabulas in certamen deferre posterioribus poetis Athenienses permisere: suntque eo modo multi coronati.”

“He raised everything he touched to grandeur. The characters in his hands became heroic; the conflicts became tense and fraught with eternal issues.”

“Aeschylus is not impersonal but transpersonal, a believer in fate and moral responsibility at the same time.”