The quotations of

Euripides

Classical Athenian playwright

481–407 BC

26 quotes, most often on Wisdom, Luck and God. Part of the Writers and Poets collections.

Old men’s prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
Alcestis, ll. 669–672, Admetus (Bartlett’s, 1892)
- Age
- Life & Death
There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.
Iphigenia in Tauris, ll. 721–722 (Bartlett’s, 1892)
- Change
- Luck
Man’s most valuable trait
is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
Helen, ll. 1617–1618 (tr. Richmond Lattimore, 1956)
- Wisdom
Humility, a sense of reverence before the sons of heaven — of all the prizes that a mortal man might win, these, I say, are wisest; these are best.
The Bacchae, ll. 1150-1152 (tr. William Arrowsmith, 1958)
- Virtue
- Wisdom
Yea, I know to what bad things
I go, but louder than all thought doth cry
Anger, which maketh man’s worst misery.
Medea (431 BC), Part 2, spoken by MedeaIn context
- Anger
How can any man, whose eyes
Are wholesome, seek to rear his children wise
Beyond men’s wont? Much helplessness in arts
Of common life, and in their townsmen’s hearts
Envy deep-set … so much their learning brings!
Come unto fools with knowledge of new things,
They deem it vanity, not knowledge.
Medea (431 BC), Part 1, spoken by MedeaIn context
Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven,
From whence to man strange dooms be given,
Past hope or fear.
And the end men looked for cometh not,
And a path is there where no man thought:
So hath it fallen here.
Medea (431 BC), Part 2, spoken by ChorusIn context
- God
- Luck
I looked upon man’s days, and found a grey
Shadow. And this thing more I surely say,
That those of all men who are counted wise,
Strong wits, devisers of great policies,
Do pay the bitterest toll. Since life began,
Hath there in God’s eye stood one happy man?
Fair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less
Of fortune, but to no man happiness.
Medea (431 BC), Part 2, spoken by MessengerIn context
’Tis written, gifts persuade
The gods in heaven; and gold is stronger made
Than words innumerable to bend men’s ways.
Medea (431 BC), Part 2, spoken by MedeaIn context
- Money
- Power
Alas, the Love that falleth like a flood,
Strong-winged and transitory:
Why praise ye him? What beareth he of good
To man, or glory?
Yet Love there is that moves in gentleness,
Heart-filling, sweetest of all powers that bless.
Medea (431 BC), Part 1, spoken by ChorusIn context
- Love
Hast thou lived all these years, and learned but now
That every man more loveth his own head
Than other men’s?
Medea (431 BC), Part 1, spoken by AttendantIn context
- Character

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