People From Athens

"It is only for those to employ force who possess strength without judgment; but the well advised will have recourse to other means. Besides, he who pretends to carry his point by force hath need of many associates; but the man who can persuade knows that he is himself sufficient for the purpose; neither can such a one be supposed forward to shed blood; for, who is there would choose to destroy a fellow citizen rather than make a friend of him by mildness and persuasion?"

"The thing is to get them to turn their thoughts to what they mean to do, instead of to what they are likely to suffer."

"The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.” “Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”"

"Clearchus spoke, and his words were few; "Conquerors do not, as a rule, give up their arms.""

"Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever."

"Phobokleon: Hunger knows no friend but its feeder. (embellished tr. Parker 1962, p. 55)"

"Sosias: The love of wine is a good man's failing. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Chorus: [We] must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator ready to sting us. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Bdelycleon: It is so that you may know only those who nourish you (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Chorus: Under every stone lurks a politician. (tr. in Bartlett 1968, p. 91 or Archive.org)"

"[909] Just Cause: You are debauched and shameless. [910] Unjust Cause: You have spoken roses of me. [910] Just Cause: And a dirty lickspittle. [911] Unjust Cause: You crown me with lilies. [911] Just Cause: And a parricide. [912] Unjust Cause: You don't know that you are sprinkling me with gold. [913] Just Cause: Certainly not so formerly, but with lead. [914] Unjust Cause: But now this is an ornament to me. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus — for comparison with tr. below)"

"Agathon: One must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 2, p. 278) (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"What did they say when they slandered me? I must, as if they were my actual prosecutors, read the affidavit they would have sworn. It goes something like this: Socrates is guilty of wrongdoing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things to others. You have seen this yourself in the comedy of Aristophanes, a Socrates swinging about there, saying he was walking on air and talking a lot of other nonsense about things of which I know nothing at all. I do not speak in contempt of such knowledge, if someone is wise in these things—lest Meletus bring more cases against me—but, gentlemen, I have no part in it, and on this point I call upon the majority of you as witnesses. I think it right that all those of you who have heard me conversing, and many of you have, should tell each other if anyone of you has ever heard me discussing such subjects to any extent at all. From this you will learn that the other things said about me by the majority are of the same kind. Not one of them is true. And if you have heard from anyone that I undertake to teach people and charge a fee for it, that is not true either."

"[909] Philosophy: Why, you Precocious Pederast! You Palpable Pervert! [910] Sophistry: Pelt me with roses! [910] Philosophy: You Toadstool! O Cesspool! [911] Sophistry: Wreath my hairs with lilies! [911] Philosophy: Why, you Parricide! [912] Sophistry: Shower me with gold! Look, don't you see I welcome your abuse? [913] Philosophy: Welcome it, monster? In my day we would have cringed with shame. [914] Sophistry: Whereas now we're flattered. Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today. (heavily rewritten and embellished tr. Arrowsmith 1962, p. 70)"

"Philokleon: Let each man exercise the art he knows. (tr. Rogers 1909, p. 110)"

"Chremylus: [Wealth], the most excellent of all the gods. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Blepsidemus: There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold! (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Chremylus: And what good thing can [Poverty] give us, unless it be burns in the bath, and swarms of brats and old women who cry with hunger, and clouds uncountable of lice, gnats and flies, which hover about the wretch's head, trouble him, awake him and say, “You will be hungry, but get up!” [...] Poverty: It's not my life that you describe; you are attacking the existence beggars lead. [...] The beggar, whom you have depicted to us, never possesses anything. The poor man lives thriftily and attentive to his work; he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he really needs. [...] But what you don't know is this, that men with me are worth more, both in mind and body, than with [Wealth]. With him they are gouty, big-bellied, heavy of limb and scandalously stout; with me they are thin, wasp-waisted, and terrible to the foe. [...] As for behavior, I will prove to you that modesty dwells with me and insolence with [Wealth]. [...] 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. [...] Chremylus: Then tell me this, why does all mankind flee from you? Poverty: Because I make them better. Children do the very same; they flee from the wise counsels of their fathers. So difficult is it to see one's true interest. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Hierocles: You will never make the crab walk straight. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"[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)"

"[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)"

"Chorus [speaking for Aristophanes]: Yet I have not been seen frequenting the wrestling school intoxicated with success and trying to seduce young boys; but I took all my theatrical gear and returned straight home. I pained folk but little and caused them much amusement; my conscience rebuked me for nothing. Hence both grown men and youths should be on my side and I likewise invite the bald to give me their votes; for, if I triumph, everyone will say, both at table and at festivals, “Carry this to the bald man, give these cakes to the bald one, do not grudge the poet whose talent shines as bright as his own bare skull the share he deserves.” (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"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)"

"Demosthenes [to the Sausage-Seller]: Mix and knead together all the state business as you do for your sausages. To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them. Besides, you 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. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Aeschylus: It is the compelling power of great thoughts and ideas to engender phrases of equal size. (tr. Dillon 1995, Perseus)"

"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)"

"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)"

"Æschylus: High thoughts must have high language. (rewritten and embellished tr. Fitts 1955, p. 108)"

"Just Discourse: 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. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 359)"

"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)"

"Old age is second childhood."

"Strepsiades: ‘Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Zeus and is King now. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 350)"

"Strepsiades: Whirl is King, having driven out Zeus. (tr. in Lippmann 1929, p. 1 and 4)"

"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)"

"Pisthetaerus: By words the mind is winged. (tr. unknown, seen in Airpower Journal 1990, and in Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations 1993, Google Books Search)"

"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)"

"Informer: My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words. Pisthetaerus: It's just my words that gives you wings. Informer: And how can you give a man wings with your words? Pisthetaerus: They all start this way. [...] Informer: So that words give wings? Pisthetaerus: Undoubtedly; words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven. Thus I hope that my wise words will give you wings to fly to some less degrading trade. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"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)"

"Strepsiades: Vortex reigns, having expelled Zeus. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)"

"Demosthenes: Do you dare to accuse wine of clouding the reason? Quote me more marvellous 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. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"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)"

"Unjust Discourse: To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is a talent worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae. (tr. Athen. 1912, vol. 1, p. 361)"

"Leader of the Chorus: An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"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)"

"Chorus [of Birds]: Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men. (tr. in Bartlett 1968, p. 91 or Archive.org)"

"Chorus [leader]: Come now, ye men, in nature darkling, like to the race of leaves, of little might, figures of clay, shadowy feeble tribes, wingless creatures of a day, miserable mortals, dream-like men. (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, p. 338)"

"Chorus [of Birds]: Man is naturally deceitful ever, in every way! (tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, p. 326)"

"Chorus [of Birds]: Man naturally is deceitful, ever indeed, and always, in every one thing. (tr. Warter 1830, p. 199)"

"Chorus [of Birds]: Man is a truly cunning creature. (abridged tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"

"Leader of the Chorus: 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. (tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus)"