The voices / 160 fragments

Euripides

484 BC — 406 BC

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗life death knowledge happiness justice wealth time faith

Historical source references

Alcestis
Medea
Iphigenia in Tauris
Bacchæ
Iphigenia in Aulis
Rhesus
Ægeus
Æolus
Alexander
Alcmene
Alope
Antigone
Antiope
Hippolytus
Licymnius
Meleager
Œdipus
Temenidæ
Phœnix
Phrixus
Printed citation: Euripides
Number 933 · printed citation: Euripides
Page 7 · printed citation: Euripides · subject: Age
Page 30 · printed citation: Euripides · subject: Birth
Page 94 · printed citation: Euripides · subject: Fortune
Page 115 · printed citation: Euripides · subject: Happiness
Page 277 · printed citation: Euripides · subject: Wisdom

Archive entries

01c. 445 BC

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

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02c. 445 BC

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.

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03c. 445 BC

The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.

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04Undated

Goodness and being in the gods are one; / He who imputes ill to them makes them none.

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05Undated

Had I succeeded well, I had been reckoned amongst the wise; so ready are we to judge from the event.

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06Undated

Silence and discretion are specially becoming in a woman, and to remain quietly at home.

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07Undated

The sorrow of Yesterday is as nothing; that of To-day is bearable; but that of To-morrow is gigantic, because indistinct.

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08Undated

Time will discover everything to posterity; it is a babbler, and speaks even when no question is put.

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09Undated

To a father waxing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.

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10Undated

He is wise that is wise to himself.

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11Undated

The language of truth is simple.

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12Undated

Lady, the sun's light to our eyes is dear, And fair the tranquil reaches of the sea, And flowery earth in May, and bounding waters; And so right many fair things I might praise; Yet nothing is so radiant and so fair As for souls childless, with desire sore-smitten, To see the light of babes about the house.

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13Undated

Ye old men, brief is the space of life allotted to you; pass it as pleasantly as ye can, not grieving from morning till eve. Since time knows not how to preserve our hopes, but, attentive to its own concerns, flies away.

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14Undated

Noble in appearance, but this is mere outside; many noble born are base.

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15Undated

See'st thou not what various fortunes the Divinity makes man to pass through, changing and turning them from day to day?

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16Undated

Foolish I deem him who, thinking that his state is blest, rejoices in security; for Fortune, like a man distempered in his senses, leaps now this way, now that, and no man is always fortunate.

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17Undated

In regard to the affairs of mortals, there is nothing happy throughout.

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18Undated

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

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19Undated

Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.

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20Undated

The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable,Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.

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21Undated

When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.

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22Undated

What mortal claims, by searching to the utmost limit, to have found out the nature of God, or of his opposite, or of that which comes between, seeing as he doth this world of man tossed to and fro by waves of contradiction and strange vicissitudes?

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23Undated

Anger exceeding limits causes fear and excessive kindness eliminates respect.

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24Undated

Cleverness is not wisdom.

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Euripides

Archive entries

Read further

The Republic

The Prophet

Confessions