ARISTOPHANES QUOTES

Greek comic dramatist (450 B.C. - 388 B.C.)

Aristophanes quote

A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.

ARISTOPHANES

Plutus

Tags: prosperity


By words the mind is winged.

ARISTOPHANES

The Birds

Tags: words


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

Tags: enemies


Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

ARISTOPHANES

The Wasps

Tags: hunger


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

Tags: humanity


'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

Tags: sin


High thoughts must have high language.

ARISTOPHANES

The Frogs

Tags: thought, language


You will never make the crab walk straight.

ARISTOPHANES

Peace


Under every stone lurks a politician.

ARISTOPHANES

Thesmophoriazusae

Tags: politics


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

Tags: wine


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

Tags: prayer


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

ARISTOPHANES

The Clouds

Tags: God


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

Tags: misfortune


There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold!

ARISTOPHANES

Plutus

Tags: gold