Euripidés: Quotes about men

Euripidés was ancient Athenian playwright. Explore interesting quotes on men.
Euripidés: 232 quotes40 likes

“When good men die their goodness does not perish,
But lives though they are gone.”

Euripidés

Temenidæ Frag. 734
Context: 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.

“The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.”

Euripidés

Ægeus, Frag. 7

“Who knows but life be that which men call death,
And death what men call life?”

Euripidés

Phrixus, Frag. 830

“The wisest men follow their own direction.”

Euripidés

“The day is for honest men, the night for thieves.”

Euripidés

“Circumstances rule men and not men circumstances.”

Euripidés

Herodotus, Book 7, Ch. 49; Misattributed to Euripedes in "The Imperial Four" by Professor Creasy in Bentley's Miscellany Vol. 33 (January 1853), p. 22
Variant translation: Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
Misattributed

“p>Helen: What happened in my heart, to make me leave my home
And my own land, to follow where a stranger led?
Rail at the goddess; be more resolute than Zeus,
Who holds power over all other divinities
But is himself the slave of love. Show Aphrodite
Your indignation; me, pardon and sympathy.Hecabe: No; Paris was an extremely handsome man – one look,
And your appetite became your Aphrodite. Why,
Men's lawless lusts are all called love – it's a confusion
Easily made.”

Euripidés The Trojan Women

Troades (c. 415 BC), lines 946–950 and 987–990 (tr. Philip Vellacott)

“I have found power in the mysteries of thought,
exaltation in the changing of the Muses;
I have been versed in the reasonings of men;
but Fate is stronger than anything I have known.”

Euripidés Alcestis

Source: Alcestis (438 BC), l. 962

“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.”

Euripidés Alcestis

Source: Alcestis (438 BC), l. 669