Euripides

Euripides (c. 480 BC - 406 BC) was the greatest of the three Greek dramatists. The two others are Aeschylus and Sophocles. This famous Greek tragic dramatist was born at Salamis, of wealthy parents. He was first trained as an athlete, and then devoted himself to painting, and eventually to poetry. He brought out his first play at the age of 25, and is reported to have written 80 plays, of which only 18 are extant, besides fragment of others. Of these plays the "Alcestes," "Bacchæ," "Iphigenia at Aulis," "Electra," and "Medea" may be mentioned. He won the tragic prize five times. Tinged with pessimism, he is nevertheless less severe than his great predecessors Sophocles and Aeschylus, surpassing them in tenderness and artistic expression, but falling short of them in strength and loftiness of dramatic conception. Sophocles, it is said, represented men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they are. He has been called the Sophist of tragic poets.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
• A large army is always disorderly.

- Hecuba

• Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
• The first requisite to happiness is to be born in a famous city.

- On Alcibiades

• Happiness is brief. It will not stay. God batters at its sails.
• Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with unsubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?

- Hecuba

• Much effort, much prosperity.

- The Suppliant women.

• Who does not detest a haughty Man?

- Hippolytus

• If your life at night is good, you think you have everything.

- Medea

• Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.

-Orestes

• The greatest pleasure of life is love.
• Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass.
• The Lucky person passes for a genius.

- Herakleidai

• Those whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes mad.

- Fragment

• Money's the wise man's religion.

- The Cyclops

• Money is far more persuasive than logical arguments.

- Medea

• If you bring novel wisdom to fools, you will be regarded as useless, not wise; and if the city regards you as greater than those with a reputation for cleverness, you will be thought vexatious. I myself am a sharer in this lot.

- Medea

• Cleverness is not wisdom.
• Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
• To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage in a man. The coward despairs.

- Heracles

• Reason can wrestle and overthrow terror.

- Iphigenia in Aulis

• The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the Children.

- Phrixus.

• Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.

- Hippolytus

• God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their Property, not seize it.

- Helen

• There is no wind that always blows a storm.

- Alcestis

• Those who are held wise among men, and who Search for the reason of things, are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves.

- Medea

• Woman is woman's natural ally.

- Alope

• Love is all in all to women.

- Andromache

• Women are but women - tears are their portion.

- Medea

• Of all creatures that can feel and think,

we women are the worst treated things alive.
- Medea

• To the worker, God himself lends aid.

- Hippolytus

• Youth is the best time to be rich and the best time to be poor.

- Heracles

• In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you've heard the other side.

- The Children of Herakles

• When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor.
• Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.
• Nothing has more strength than dire necessity.
• Leave no stone unturned.
• No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.
• There is something in the pang of change

More than the heart can bear,
Unhappiness remembering happiness.

• Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.
• Events will take their course, it is no good of being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.
• 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.
• Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.
• The good and the wise lead quiet lives.
• He is not a lover who does not love forever.
• Silence is true wisdom's best reply.
• Impudence is the worst of all human diseases.
• This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.
• The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
• No one is happy all his life long.
• Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand.
• One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.
• Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
• Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.
• There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.

Protagoras