Works
Dyskolos
Menander
Menander:
18
quotes
21
likes
Famous Menander Quotes
“Whom the gods love dies young.”
[Epigramatic] Sentences, 425
He whom the gods love dies young.
The Double Deceiver, frag. 4.
Variant: ὃν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν, ἀποθνῄσκει νέος.
Source: Menander: The Plays and Fragments
“I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.”
Unidentified fragment 545 K (K = T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 3 vols. (Leipzig 1880/8)), as translated in Menander: The Principal Fragments (1921) by Francis Greenleaf Allinson.
Menander Quotes about life
The Ghost, 31-43.
Menander Quotes
Gorgias.
Dyskolos
Context: Even if you were a softy, you took the mattock, you dug,
you were willing to work. In this part he most shows himself a man,
whoever tolerates making himself equal to another,
rich to poor. For this man will bear a change of fortune
with self-control. You have given a sufficient proof of your character.
I wish only that you remain as you are.
“To say more than what's necessary
I don't think is appropriate for a man.”
Knemon.
Variant translation: I don't hold with people saying more than they need; but there is one thing more, my child, that I'd like you to know. I just want to say a few things to you about life, and the way people behave. You know, if we were all kind to one another, there'd be no need for law courts, there'd be no arresting people and putting them into prison, and there would be no more war. Everyone would have his little bit, and be content. But maybe you like modern ways better? Well, live that way, then! This difficult and bad-tempered old man will soon be out of the way.
As translated by William Geoffrey Arnott http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/menander.htm.
Dyskolos
Context: To say more than what's necessary
I don't think is appropriate for a man. Except know this, child —
for I wish to tell you a little about me and my character —
if everyone were like me there wouldn't be law courts,
and they wouldn't take them away to prisons,
and there wouldn't be wars, but having goods in measure each man would be happy.
But perhaps those things are more pleasing. Act that way.
This difficult and grouchy old man will be out of your way.
“The truth sometimes not sought for comes forth to the light.”
The Girl Who Gets Flogged, fragment 422.
“Marriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil.”
Unidentified fragment 651.
“The man who runs may fight again.”
Variant translation: The man who runs away will fight again.
Monosticha.
“At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool.”
Those Offered for Sale, fragment 421.
“You are by your epiphany a veritable "god from the machine."”
The Woman Possessed with a Divinity, fragment 227, as translated in Menander: The Principal Fragments (1921) by Francis Greenleaf Allinson; this is one of the earliest occurrences of the phrase which became famous in its Latin form as "Deus ex machina."
“[Old age] never comes alone.”
Monosticha http://www.gottwein.de/Grie/menand/monost_a.php (491).
