Quotes from Aristophanes

Wealth, the most excellent of all the gods.

The love of wine is a good man's failing.

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

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.

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

You are debauched and shameless. You have spoken roses of me. And a dirty lickspittle. You crown me with lilies. And a parricide. You don't know that you are sprinkling me with gold. Certainly not so formerly, but with lead. But now this is an ornament to me.

It is so that you may know only those who nourish you

We must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator ready to sting us.

You will never make the crab walk straight.

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.

'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.

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.

A fox is subtlety itself.

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.

Prayers without wine are perfectly pointless.

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

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

I don't know what prevents me from roasting you with this torch.

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

The old are in a second childhood.

Poverty, the most fearful monster that ever drew breath.

What serious airs the rascal puts on! Look! His legs are already shrieking "oh! oh!" They are asking for shackles and wedges.

Evil events from evil causes spring, And what you suffer flows from what you've done.

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