Top 90 Aristophanes Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “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.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

53. “When men drink wine they are rich, they are busy, they push lawsuits, they are happy, they are friends.”

— Aristophanes

54. “There’s no art where there’s no fee.”

— Aristophanes

55. “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.”

— Aristophanes

56. “These impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: can’t live with them, or without them!”

— Aristophanes

57. “Under every stone lurks a politician.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

59. “LYSISTRATA You know how to work. Play with him, lead him on, Seduce him to the cozening-point – kiss him, kiss him, Then slip your mouth aside just as he’s sure of it, Ungirdle every caress his mouth feels at Save that the oath upon the bowl has locked. MYRRHINE.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

61. “Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself.”

— Aristophanes

62. “Shakespeare wrote sculduddery because he liked it, and for no other reason; his sensuality is the measure of his vitality.”

— Aristophanes

63. “One’s country is wherever one does well.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

66. “Surely you do not believe in the gods. What’s your argument? Where’s your proof?”

— Aristophanes

67. “I love him, oh! I love him; but he won’t let himself be loved.”

— Aristophanes

68. “Evil events from evil causes spring.”

— Aristophanes

69. “To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae.”

— Aristophanes

70. “A slave is but half a man.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

72. “Prayers without wine are perfectly pointless.”

— Aristophanes

73. “That man is sharp who can say what he wants in a minimum of words.”

— Aristophanes

74. “A man should be able to stand up under any disaster for his country’s good.”

— Aristophanes

75. “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.”

— Aristophanes

76. “Women, you overheated dipsomaniacs, never passing up a chance to wangle a drink, a great boon to bartenders but a bane to us – not to mention our crockery and our woolens!”

— Aristophanes

77. “Do not take a blind guide.”

— Aristophanes

78. “LYSISTRATA By the Goddesses, you’ll find that here await you Four companies of most pugnacious women Armed cap-a-pie from the topmost louring curl To the lowest angry dimple. MAGISTRATE.”

— Aristophanes

79. “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.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

82. “MEN Ah cursed drab, what have you brought this water for? WOMEN What is your fire for then, you smelly corpse? Yourself to burn?”

— Aristophanes

83. “You can’t have anything else to say: you’ve poured out every drop of what you know.”

— Aristophanes

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

— Aristophanes

85. “I must think of something foolproof for a fool.”

— Aristophanes

86. “Have you ever been struck by a sudden desire for – soup?”

— Aristophanes

87. “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.”

— Aristophanes

88. “An actor should refine public taste.”

— Aristophanes

89. “What’s the use of crowbars? It’s not crowbars that we need, it’s intelligence and common sense.”

— Aristophanes

90. “What unlooked-for things do happen, to be sure, in a long life!”

— Aristophanes

91. “SOCRATES. Silence, old man, give heed to the prayers... Oh! most mighty king, the boundless air, that keepest the earth suspended in space, thou bright Aether and ye venerable goddesses, the Clouds, who carry in your loins the thunder and the lightning, arise, ye sovereign powers and manifest yourselves in the celestial spheres to the eyes of the sage.”

— Aristophanes

92. “Let’s smell like women, armed to teeth with rage!”

— Aristophanes

93. “STREPSIADES. So the rear of a gnat is a trumpet. Oh! what a splendid discovery! Thrice happy Socrates! ‘Twould not be difficult to succeed in a law-suit, knowing so much about the gut of a gnat!”

— Aristophanes

94. “In the second half of the play he arbitrates a contest between the poets Aeschylus and Euripides for pre-eminence in the art of tragedy.”

— Aristophanes

95. “The Chorus of Eleusinian Initiates lead Dionysus and Aeschylus off in a torchlight procession recalling the inspirational finale of Aeschylus’ Oresteia.”

— Aristophanes

96. “In the first half of the play he is the anti-heroic and burlesque figure long familiar in comedy and satyr drama.”

— Aristophanes

97. “Very soon we’ll be eating lepadotema choselackogaleokrani oleipsanodrimypotrimmatosil phiotyromelitokatake chymenokicklepikossyphopkat toperisteralektryonoptokeph aliokinklopeleiolagoiosiral obaphetragalopter ygdn.”

— Aristophanes