Aristophanes Quotes
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Chorus: We must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator ready to sting us. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Lamachus: Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much! (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, Perseus)
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Sosias: The love of wine is a good man's failing. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Just Cause: Learn not to contradict your father in anything; nor by calling him Iapetus, to reproach him with the ills of age, by which you were reared in your infancy. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)
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Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; ... I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. ... Blepyrus: But who will till the soil? Praxagora: The slaves. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Choir of Men: O botheration take you all! How you cajole and flatter. A hell it is to live with you; to live without, a hell: (tr. Lindsay 1925, Perseus)
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Choir of Men: There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed. Choir of Women: And yet you are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with me, when for your faithful ally you might win me easily. (tr. Lindsay 1925, Perseus)
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Epops: Come let me see, what shall the name be for our city? ... Euelpides: Hence, from the clouds, and these meteoric regions, some all-swelling name. Pisthetaerus: Would you 'Cloud-cuckoo-land?' (tr. Warter 1830, p. 215)
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Poet: 'Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic.' Do you get what I mean? Pisthetaerus: I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (To the acolyte.) take off yours; we must help the poet. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Dicaepolis: Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true. (tr. Athen. 1912, Perseus)
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Unjust Cause: This art is worth more than ten thousand staters, that one should choose the worse cause, and nevertheless be victorious. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)
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Æschylus: High thoughts must have high language. (rewritten and embellished tr. Fitts 1955, p. 108)
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Chorus of Birds: Man naturally is deceitful, ever indeed, and always, in every one thing. (tr. Warter 1830, p. 199)
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Sausage-Seller: You demagogues are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Lysistrata: O women, if we would compel the men to bow to Peace, ... We must refrain from every depth of love.... Why do you turn your backs? Where are you going? Why do you bite your lips and shake your heads? Why are your faces blanched? Why do you weep? (tr. Lindsay 1925, Perseus)
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Praxagora: Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Hierocles: You will never make the crab walk straight. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Choir of Women: 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. (tr. Lindsay 1925, Perseus)
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Bdelycleon: It is so that you may know only those who nourish you (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Chorus leader: Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, / Protracted with sorrow from day to day, / Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, / Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay! (heavily rewritten tr. Frere 1839, p. 38)
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Blepsidemus: There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold! (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Chremylus: Wealth, the most excellent of all the gods. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)
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Strepsiades: But come, by the Earth, is not Zeus, the Olympian, a god? Socrates: What Zeus? Do not trifle. There is no Zeus. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)
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Demosthenes: A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)