I love the old way best, the simple way of poison, where we too are strong as men.
EuripidesRead
No one is truly free, they are a slave to wealth, fortune, the law, or other people restraining them from acting according to their will.
Interpretation
True freedom is an illusion, as individuals are often constrained by various societal and personal factors.
The quote by Euripides suggests that true freedom is unattainable because individuals are bound by their circumstances, such as financial obligations, societal expectations, and legal restrictions. It highlights the paradox of freedom, where the pursuit of wealth, status, or compliance with social norms can actually hinder one's ability to act freely and according to one's own desires.
In practice
In a debate about the impact of societal norms on individual freedom, one might quote Euripides to illustrate the complexities of autonomy.
I love the old way best, the simple way of poison, where we too are strong as men.
Mankind . . . 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.
With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch.
A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
It's just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
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