Aristophanes

Magistrate: May I die a thousand deaths ere I obey one who wears a veil!

Lysistrata: If that's all that troubles you, here take my veil, wrap it round your head, and hold your tounge. Then take this basket; put on a girdle, card wool, munch beans. The War shall be women's business.

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.

One’s country is wherever one does well.

What can you answer? Now be careful, don’t arouse my spite, Or with my slipper I’ll take you napping,
faces slapping
Left and right.

You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets.

"EPOPS But, after all, what sort of city would please you best?

EUELPIDES A place where the following would be the most important business transacted. — Some friend would come knocking at the door quite early in the morning saying, "By Olympian Zeus, be at my house early, as soon as you have bathed, and bring your children too. I am giving a nuptial feast, so don't fail, or else don't cross my threshold when I am in distress.

MEN Ah cursed drab, what have you brought this water for? WOMEN What is your fire for then, you smelly corpse? Yourself to burn?

What’s the use of crowbars? It’s not crowbars that we need, it’s intelligence and common sense

I must think of something foolproof for a fool.

The trickiest thing is the nature of man, apparent in everything.

It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls

STREPSIADES. So the rear of a gnat is a trumpet. Oh! what a splendid discovery! Thrice happy Socrates! ‘Twould not be difficult to succeed in a law-suit, knowing so much about the gut of a gnat!

What heart, what soul, what bollocks could long endure this plight, having no one to shag in the middle of the night?

LYSISTRATA May gentle Love and the sweet Cyprian Queen shower seductive charms on our bosoms and all our person. If only we may stir so amorous a feeling among the men that they stand firm as sticks, we shall indeed deserve the name of peace-makers among the Greeks.

But how should women perform so wise and glorious an achievement, we women who dwell in the retirement of the household, clad in diaphanous garments of yellow silk and long flowing gowns, decked out with flowers and shod with dainty little slippers?