Best 95 quotes of Aristophanes on MyQuotes

A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.

A man may learn wisdom even from a foe.

A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.

A man should be able to stand up under any disaster for his country's good.

An ancient tradition declares that every idiot blunder we pass into law will sooner or later redound to Athens' profit.

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

Calonice: My dear Lysistrata, just what is this matter you've summoned us women to consider.What's up? Something big? Lysistrata: Very big. Calonice: (interested) Is it stout too? Lysistrata: (smiling) Yes, indeed -- both big and stout. Calonice: What? And the women still haven't come? Lysistrata: It's not what you suppose; they'd come soon enough for that.

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

Children have a master to teach them, grown-ups have the poets.

Chorus of women: [...] Oh! my good, gallant Lysistrata, and all my friends, be ever like a bundle of nettles; never let you anger slacken; the wind of fortune blown our way.

Comedy is allied to justice.

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.

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.

Do not take a blind guide.

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.

Evil events from evil causes spring.

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

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

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

High thoughts must have high language.

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

If a man owes me money, I never seem to forget. But if I do the owing, I somehow never remember.

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.

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.

Ignorance can be cured, but stupidity is forever

I saw a cavalry captain buy vegetable soup on horseback. He carried the whole mess home in his helmet.

It is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy.

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.

It is the compelling power of great thoughts and ideas to engender phrases of equal size.

It often happens that less depends upon the valor of an army than the skill of the leader.

It should not prejudice my voice that I'm not born a man, if I say something advantageous to the present situation. For I'm taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation.

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.

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.

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

Lysistrata: Oh, Calonicé, my heart is on fire; I blush for our sex. Men will have it we are tricky and sly...Calonicé: And they are quite right, upon my word!Lysistrata: Yet, look you, when the women are summoned to meet for a matter of the last importance, they lie abed instead of coming.Calonicé: Oh, they will come, my dear; but 'tis not easy you know, for a woman to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting the servant up; a third is putting her child asleep or washing the brat or feeding it.

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.

Meton (astronomer in 5th century BC): With the straight ruler I set to work To make the circle four-cornered .

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.

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

Old age is but a second childhood.

Old age is second childhood.

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

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

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.

Open your mind before your mouth

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

Poverty, the most fearful monster that ever drew breath.

Prayers without wine are perfectly pointless.

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

Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, At which the audience never fail to laugh?