Euripides - Life Quotes

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Men say of us that we live a life free from danger at home while they fight wars. How wrong they are! I would rather stand three times in the battle line than bear one child.

Euripides
Who knows but life be that which men call death,
And death what men call life?

Euripides
If your life at night is good, you think you have everything.

Euripides
Enjoy yourself, drink, call the life you live today your own; but only that, the rest belongs to chance.

Euripides
That mortal is a fool who, prospering, thinks his life has any strong foundation; since our fortune's course of action is the reeling way a madman takes, and no one person is ever happy all the time.

Euripides
Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.

Euripides
What can we take on trust in this uncertain life? Happiness, greatness, pride - nothing is secure, nothing keeps.

Euripides
I would win my way to the coast, apple-bearing Hesperian coast of which the minstrels sing, where the Lord of the Ocean denies the voyager further sailing, and fixes the solemn limit of Heaven which giant Atlas upholds. There the streams flow with ambrosia by Zeus's bed of love, and holy Earth, the giver of life, yields to the gods rich blessedness.

Euripides
Lucky that man whose children make his happiness in life and not his grief, the anguished disappointment of his hopes.

Euripides
God, these old men!
How they pray for death! How heavy they find this life in the slow drag of days!
And yet, when Death comes near them,
You will not find one who will rise and walk with him, not one whose years are still a burden to him.

Euripides
The sweetest teaching did he introduce,
Concealing truth under untrue speech.
The place he spoke of as the gods' abode
Was that by which he might awe humans most, —
The place from which, he knew, terrors came to mortals
And things advantageous in their wearisome life —
The revolving heaven above, in which dwell
The lightnings, and awesome claps
Of thunder, and the starry face of heaven,
Beautiful and intricate by that wise craftsman Time, —
From which, too, the meteor's glowing mass speeds
And wet thunderstorm pours forth upon the earth.

Euripides
There is one thing alone that stands the brunt of life throughout its course: a quiet conscience.

Euripides
Men honor property above all else; it has the greatest power in human life.

Euripides
Life is short; this being so, who would pursue great things and not bear with what is at hand? These are the ways of madmen and men of evil counsel, at least in my judgment.

Euripides
Life is a short affair; We should try to make it smooth, and free from strife.

Euripides
All men know their children Mean more than life. If childless people sneer- Well, they've less sorrow. But what lonesome luck!

Euripides