Aristophanes Quotes

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The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.

Aristophanes
Evil events from evil causes spring, And what you suffer flows from what you've done.

Aristophanes
You can't have anything else to say: you've poured out every drop of what you know.

Aristophanes
Women, you overheated dipsomaniacs, never passing up a chance to wangle a drink, a great boon to bartenders but a bane to us--not to mention our crockery and our woolens!

Aristophanes
Just Cause: [Learn] not to contradict your father in anything; nor by calling him Iapetus, to reproach him with the ills of age, by which you were reared in your infancy.

Aristophanes
Only by being suspended aloft, by dangling my mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy in my survey of the vast empyrean. Had I pursued my inquiries from down there on the ground, my data would be worthless. The earth, you see, pulls down the delicate essence of thought to its own gross level.

Aristophanes
It is right that the good should be happy, that the wicked and the impious on the other hand, should be miserable; that is a truth, I believe, which no one will gainsay.

Aristophanes
Tis not for us to warn a wilful sinner; We stay him not, but let him run his course, Till by misfortunes rous'd, his conscience wakes, And prompts him to appease th' offended gods.

Aristophanes
Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a Centaur, a Part, or a Wolf, or a Bull?

Aristophanes
A woman's time of opportunity is short, and if she doesn't seize it, no one wants to marry her, and she sits watching for omens.

Aristophanes
Just Discourse: Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.

Aristophanes
'Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Zeus and is King now.

Aristophanes
[Choir of] Men: O botheration take you all! How you cajole and flatter.
A hell it is to live with you; to live without, a hell.

Aristophanes
When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.

Aristophanes
Epops: The wise can often profit by the lessons of a foe, for caution is the mother of safety. It is just such a thing as one will not learn from a friend and which an enemy compels you to know. To begin with, it's the foe and not the friend that taught cities to build high walls, to equip long vessels of war; and it's this knowledge that protects our children, our slaves and our wealth.
Leader: Well then, I agree, let us first hear them, for that is best; one can even learn something in an enemy's school.

Aristophanes
Leader Of The Chorus: Let's see. What shall our city be called?
Euelpides: Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell — in short, some well-known name.
Pisthetaerus: Do you like Nephelococcygia?

Aristophanes
Man naturally is deceitful, ever indeed, and always, in every one thing.

Aristophanes
Man is naturally deceitful ever, in every way!

Aristophanes
It is so that you may know only those who nourish you

Aristophanes
Mix and knead together all the state business as you do for your sausages. To win the people, always cook them some savory that pleases them. Besides, you possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, cross-grained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.

Aristophanes
There is no animal more invincible than a woman, nor fire either, nor any wildcat so ruthless.

Aristophanes
[Choir of] Men: There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.
[Choir of] Women: And yet you are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with me, when for your faithful ally you might win me easily.

Aristophanes
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding and a vulgar manner.

Aristophanes
You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets.

Aristophanes
Whirl is King, having driven out Zeus.

Aristophanes
Who knows whether living is dying, and breathing Is eating, and sleeping is a wool blanket?

Aristophanes
This Second Logic then, I mean the Worse one,
They teach to talk unjustly, and—prevail.

Aristophanes
The love of wine is a good man's failing.

Aristophanes
One must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.

Aristophanes
Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, / Protracted with sorrow from day to day, / Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, / Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay!

Aristophanes