Aristophanes Quotes

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what Zeus will send you.

Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.

A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.

Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.

Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.

Ignorance can be cured, but stupidity is forever

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.

A man may learn wisdom even from a foe.

[Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.

Characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

By words the mind is winged.

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.

Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true.

Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.

Old age is second childhood.

This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought Should contrive our fees to pilfer, on who for his native land Never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand.

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

You're mistaken; men of sense often learn much from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learnt from a friend: but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes and not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.

Under every stone lurks a politician.

High thoughts must have high language.

There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.

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

To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae.

First listen, my friend, and then you may shriek and bluster.

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

The wise learn many things from their enemies.

You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along.

Prayers without wine are perfectly pointless.

No man is really honest; none of us is above the influence of gain.

To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high.

These impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: can't live with them, or without them!

An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud.

Open your mind before your mouth

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.

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

Today things are better than yesterday.

Thou shouldst not decide until thou hast heard what both have to say.

One bush, they say, can never hide two thieves.

Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men.

Does it seem that everything is extravagance in the world, or rather madness, when you watch the way things go? A crowd of rogues enjoy blessings they have won by sheer injustice, while more honest folks are miserable and die of hunger.

Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.

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.

If you strike upon a thought that baffles you, break off from that entanglement and try another, so shall your wits be fresh to start again.

If I get clear of my debts, I care not though men call me bold, glib of tongue, audacious, impudent, shameless, a fabricator of falsehoods, inventor of words, practised in lawsuits, a pettifogger, a rattle, a fox, a sharper, a knave, a dissembler, a slippery fellow, an imposter, a rogue that deserves the cat-o-nine-tails, a blackguard, a twister, a licker-up of hashes; they call all this when they meet me, if they please, I care not.

Comedy is allied to justice.

Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.

Love is merely the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.

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