The truth is forced upon us, very quickly, by a foe.
ARISTOPHANESThe truth is forced upon us, very quickly, by a foe.
ARISTOPHANESYou 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.
ARISTOPHANESThese impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: can’t live with them, or without them!
ARISTOPHANESIt is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy.
ARISTOPHANESLook 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.
ARISTOPHANESMen 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.
ARISTOPHANESThe gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.
ARISTOPHANESTo win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.
ARISTOPHANESIf a man owes me money, I never seem to forget. But if I do the owing, I somehow never remember.
ARISTOPHANESTo invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae.
ARISTOPHANESHow can I study from below, that which is above?
ARISTOPHANESDoes 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.
ARISTOPHANESYou cannot teach a crab to walk straight.
ARISTOPHANESA demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.
ARISTOPHANESOld age is second childhood.
ARISTOPHANESChildren have a master to teach them, grown-ups have the poets.
ARISTOPHANES