Quotes from Aristophanes

I will give him the precedence; and then, from these things which he adduces, I will shoot him dead with new words and thoughts. And at last, if he mutter, he shall be destroyed, being stung in his whole face and his two eyes by my maxims, as if by bees. Aristophanes, Clouds 945

My country's where my comfort's best secured.

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

El guiar al pueblo no es cosa de un hombre culto ni de buenos principios, sino de un ignorante y bellaco (Los caballeros, 424 aC)

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

This is the first of the series of three Comedies—'The Acharnians,' 'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'—produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent ruin of industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency of asking Peace.

Where is Amphitheus? Come and speak with me. AMPHITHEUS Here I am. DICAEOPOLIS Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with the Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free, my dear citizens, to send out embassies and to stand gaping in the air.

Humankind, fleet of life like tree leaves, unsubstantial as shadows, weak creatures of clay, wingless, ephemeral, sorrow worn, and dreamlike.

What heart, what soul, what bollocks could long endure this plight, having no one to shag in the middle of the night?

One's country is wherever one does well. Où l'on est bien, là est la patrie.

Ne zaman Ploutos eskisi gibi görür oldu ondan beri kimse biz tanr?lara ne buhur, ne defne, ne arpa ekmeÄŸi, ne kurban, ne baÅŸka bir ÅŸey takdim eder oldu.

You should not decide until you have heard what both have to say.

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.

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

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

The truth is forced upon us, very quickly, by a foe.

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

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

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

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.

You cannot make a crab walk straight.

A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.

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

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.