Aristophanes

Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?

[Y]ou [man] are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with [woman=] me, when for your faithful ally you might win me easily.

Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.

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

When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.

These impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: Can't live with them, or without them.

Children have a master to teach them, grown-ups have the poets.

To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high.

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.

High thoughts must have high language.

Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.

Open your mind before your mouth

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.

Calonice: My dear Lysistrata, just what is this matter you've summoned us women to consider.What's up? Something big? Lysistrata: Very big. Calonice: (interested) Is it stout too? Lysistrata: (smiling) Yes, indeed -- both big and stout. Calonice: What? And the women still haven't come? Lysistrata: It's not what you suppose; they'd come soon enough for that.

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

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

Evil events from evil causes spring.

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

The old are in a second childhood.

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.

To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.