150 Quotes by Euripides
Euripides, an ancient Greek playwright, is celebrated as one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, alongside Aeschylus and Sophocles. His plays, known for their exploration of complex human emotions and their provocative themes, often challenged traditional norms and beliefs of the time. Euripides' works, such as "Medea," "The Bacchae," and "Electra," delve into the psychological depths of characters facing moral dilemmas, often depicting the tragic consequences of human folly and hubris. His portrayal of strong and complex female characters was groundbreaking for his era. Euripides' contributions to theater extended beyond his time, influencing later playwrights and thinkers, and his legacy as a playwright who dared to question societal norms and delve into the intricacies of human nature endures to this day.
Euripides Quotes
There is safety in numbers. (Meaning)
Numbers are a fearful thing. (Quote Meaning)
Account no man happy till he dies. (Meaning)
No one is happy all his life long. (Quote Meaning)
He who believes needs no explanation. (Meaning)
A woman should always stand by a woman. (Quote Meaning)
How dark are all the ways of god to man! (Meaning)
When cheated, wife or husband feels the same. (Quote Meaning)
Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour (Meaning)
Every man is like the company he wont to keep. (Quote Meaning)
Sanity brings pain but madness is a vile thing. (Meaning)
He was a wise man who originated the idea of God. (Quote Meaning)
Nothing happens to man without the permission of God. (Meaning)
Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad. (Quote Meaning)
tell me how does it feel with my teeth in your heart! (Meaning)
To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter. (Quote Meaning)
No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow. (Meaning)
Your very silence shows you agree. (Quote Meaning)
Do not consider painful what is good for you. (Meaning)
To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage in a man. (Quote Meaning)
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. (Meaning)
Life has no blessing like a prudent friend. (Quote Meaning)
There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change. (Meaning)
Slight not what's near, while aiming at what's far. (Quote Meaning)
Down on your knees, and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love. (Meaning)
The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate. (Quote Meaning)
Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment. (Meaning)
One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives. (Quote Meaning)
Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness. (Meaning)
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. (Quote Meaning)
Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand.
Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other. (Meaning)
Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends.
Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings. (Quote Meaning)
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Tragedy isn't getting something or failure to get it; it's losing something you already have. Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing. (Meaning)
Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.
We must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing.
When love is in excess, it brings a man no honor, no worthiness.
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. (Quote Meaning)
The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.
A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts. (Meaning)
Leave no stone unturned. (Quote Meaning)
You will not achieve happiness if you don't work hard; and it's a shame not to want to work hard.
The greatest pleasure of life is love. (Meaning)
When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor. (Quote Meaning)
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. (Meaning)
Judge a tree from its fruit, not from its leaves. (Quote Meaning)
The good and the wise lead quiet lives. (Meaning)
The wisest men follow their own direction. (Quote Meaning)
He is not a lover who does not love forever. (Meaning)
No man on earth is truly free, All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.
There is no worse evil than a bad woman; and nothing has ever been produced better than a good one.
Zeus hates busybodies and those who do too much.
Silence is true wisdom's best reply. (Quote Meaning)
Where there is no wine there is no love. (Meaning)
In goodness there are all kinds of wisdom.
Experience, travel - these are an education in themselves. (Quote Meaning)
"God in heaven has dominion
Over so many events.
He can frustrate what seems inevitable,
And bring to pass the thing that you least expect."
There is just one life for each of us: our own. (Meaning)
The language of truth is simple. (Quote Meaning)
A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. (Meaning)
I would prefer as friend a good man ignorant than one more clever who is evil too.
Joint undertakings stand a better chance when they benefit both sides.
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. (Quote Meaning)
Life is a short affair; We should try to make it smooth, and free from strife.
God gives each his due at the time allotted.
Enough is abundance to the wise. (Meaning)
The same man cannot well be skilled in everything; each has his special excellence.
Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom. (Quote Meaning)
When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.
The brash unbridled tongue, the lawless folly of fools, will end in pain. But the life of wise content is blest with quietness, escapes the storm and keeps its house secure.
The care of God for us is a great thing, if a man believe it at heart: it plucks the burden of sorrow from him.
Nothing has more strength than dire necessity. (Meaning)
Our lives are but a little while, so let them run as sweetly as you can, and give no thought to grief from day to day. For time is not concerned to keep our hopes, but hurries on its business, and is gone.
Much effort, much prosperity. (Quote Meaning)
Everyone asks if a man is rich, no one if he is good.
Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife. (Meaning)
In this world second thoughts, it seems, are best.
Time will explain it all. Waste no tears over the griefs of yesterday. One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives. Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other. Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
Anger exceeding limits causes fear and excessive kindness eliminates respect.
Noble fathers have noble children.
Try first thyself, and after call in God; For to the worker God himself lends aid.
Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent. (Quote Meaning)
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. (Meaning)
Waste no tears over the griefs of yesterday.
Money is far more persuasive than logical arguments.
Money is the wise man's religion. (Quote Meaning)
Danger gleams like sunshine to a brave man's eyes.
No one who lives in error is free.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Of all things upon earth that bleed and grow, a herb most bruised is woman.
Friendship doubles your joys, and divides your sorrows. (Meaning)
To the ignorant, even the words of wise seem foolishness.
Neither earth nor ocean produces a creature as savage and monstrous as woman.
Worse than a true evil is it to bear the burden of faults that are not truly yours.
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?
Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything. (Quote Meaning)
There is no benefit in the gifts of a bad man. (Meaning)
Let a man accept his destiny, No pity and no tears.
Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm; great good fortune comes to failure in the end. All is change; all yields its place and goes; to persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage in a man. The coward despairs. (Quote Meaning)
God hates violence. He has ordained that all men fairly possess their property, not seize it.
The new-come stepmother hates the children born to a first wife.
I have found power in the mysteries of thought. (Meaning)
When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.
Often a noble face hides filthy ways.
New faces have more authority than accustomed ones.
The lucky person passes for a genius.
Some men never find prosperity, For all their voyaging, While others find it with no voyaging.
It is a good thing to be rich and strong, but it is a better thing to be loved.
Slow but sure moves the might of the gods.
When good men die their goodness does not perish, But lives though they are gone. As for the bad, All that was theirs dies and is buried with them.
Death is what men want when the anguish of living is more than they can bear.
Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.
Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. (Quote Meaning)
It is the wise man's part to leave in darkness everything that is ugly.
A sharp-tempered woman, or, for that matter, a man, Is easier to deal with than the clever type Who holds her tongue.
Both to the rich and poor, wine is the happy antidote for sorrow.
What greater grief than the loss of one's native land. (Meaning)
Terrible is the force of the waves of sea, terrible is the rush of the river and the blasts of hot fire, and terrible are a thousand other things; but none is such a terrible evil as woman.
Prepare yourselves for the roaring voice of the God of Joy!
A wretched child Is he who does not return his parents' care.
In my opinion, the unjust man whose tongue is full of glozing rhetoric, merits the heaviest punishment; vaunting that he can with his tongue gloze over injustice, he dares to act wickedly, yet he is not over-wise.
This is true liberty, when free-born men, having to advise the public, may speak free.
But learn that to die is a debt we must all pay.
Action achieves more than words.
Moderation, the noblest gift of Heaven.
The brave venture anything.
The best prophet is common sense, our native wit.
Good and bad may not be dissevered; There is, as there should be, a commingling.
Impudence is the worst of all human diseases.
We can only be wise with wisdom of our own. (Quote Meaning)
The way of God is complex, he is hard for us to predict. He moves the pieces and they come somehow into a kind of order.
Again, a smooth answer, signifying nothing.
I think it makes small difference to the dead, if they are buried in the tokens of luxury. All that is an empty glorification left for those who live.
Wine is a terrible foe, hard to wrestle with.
Prosperity is full of friends. (Meaning)
The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind bravery if forethought.
It is wise to withhold one's heart and mind from men who think themselves superior.
Those whose cause is just will never lack good arguments.
When good men die their goodness does not perish.
We pay a high price for intelligence. Wisdom hurts.
Do not mistake the rule of force for true power. Men are not shaped by force.
All men know their children mean more than life.
Some wisdom you must learn from one who's wise
I sacrifice to no god save myself - And to my belly, greatest of deities.
In misfortune, which friend remains a friend?
Ill-gotten wealth is never stable.
This is courage in a man: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.
Time will unveil all things to posterity. (Quote Meaning)
Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart.
Cleverness is not wisdom. And not to think mortal thoughts is to see few days. (Meaning)
One does nothing who tries to console a despondent person with word. A friend is one who aids with deeds at a critical time when deeds are called for.
The meanest life is better than the most glorious death.
A wise man in his house should find a wife gentle and courteous, or no wife at all.
In the hands of vicious men, a mob will do anything. But under good leaders it's quite a different story.
Out of some little thing, too free a tongue can make an outrageous wrangle.
Common sense is the best prophet.
It's the wise man who stays home when he's drunk.
Let my heart be wise. It is the gods' best gift.
This is sweet to see your foe, perish and pay to justice all he owes.
The stillest tongue can be the truest friend.
The man who sticks it out against his fate shows spirit, but the spirit of a fool.
If the gods do evil then they are not gods.
A rare spoil for a man Is the winning of a good wife; very Plentiful are the worthless women.
Wine enlivens the human soul.
Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain.
Your worst enemy Becomes your best friend, once he's underground.
It was my tongue that swore; my heart is unsworn.
None can hold fortune still and make it last.
Delusive hope still points to distant good.
According to success do we gain a reputation for judgement.
― Euripides Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.