I love the old way best, the simple way of poison, where we too are strong as men.
The lucky person passes for a genius.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Luck can often make a person seem more capable than they actually are.
This quote by Euripides suggests that luck has a significant role in determining how people are perceived in their abilities. When a person benefits from fortunate circumstances, they may be regarded as a genius or exceptional, regardless of their actual skill or talent. This highlights the interplay between chance and merit in life, reminding us that appearances can be deceiving and that success is not always purely a result of individual effort or intelligence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about innovation, one might use this quote to emphasize how sometimes success comes from being in the right place at the right time.
More from Euripides
All quotes βMankind . . . possesses two supreme blessings. First of these is the goddess Demeter, or Earth whichever name you choose to call her by. It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain. But after her there came the son of Semele, who matched her present by inventing liquid wine as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift, suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles of the day. There is no other medicine for misery.
Money is far more persuasive than logical arguments.
Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.
Who then will dare to say I'm weak or timid? No, they'll say I'm loyal as a friend, ruthless as a foe, so much like a hero destined for glory.
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
Similar quotes
Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.
A power struggle collapses when you withdraw your energy from it. Power struggles become uninteresting to you when you change your intention from winning to learning about yourself.
Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation.
Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.