ARISTOPHANES QUOTES
Greek comic dramatist (450 B.C. - 388 B.C.)
A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.
ARISTOPHANES
Plutus
By words the mind is winged.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.
ARISTOPHANES
The Wasps
Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
High thoughts must have high language.
ARISTOPHANES
The Frogs
'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
The Clouds
You will never make the crab walk straight.
ARISTOPHANES
Peace
Under every stone lurks a politician.
ARISTOPHANES
Thesmophoriazusae
I would treat her like an egg, the shell of which we remove before eating it; I would take off her mask and then kiss her pretty face.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
Do you dare to accuse wine of clouding the reason? Quote me more marvelous effects than those of wine. Look! when a man drinks, he is rich, everything he touches succeeds, he gains lawsuits, is happy and helps his friends. Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.
ARISTOPHANES
The Knights
A fox is subtlety itself.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right.
ARISTOPHANES
The Acharnians
Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.
ARISTOPHANES
The Clouds
Prayers without wine are perfectly pointless.
ARISTOPHANES
The Congresswomen
The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.
ARISTOPHANES
The Clouds
It is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy.
ARISTOPHANES
The Thesmophoriazusae
I don't know what prevents me from roasting you with this torch.
ARISTOPHANES
Lysistrata
One must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.
ARISTOPHANES
The Thesmophoriazusae
There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold!
ARISTOPHANES
Plutus