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Alexander Woollcott

Alexander Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American critic and journalist known for his involvement in the Algonquin Round Table and his writings in The New Yorker magazine.

Woollcott was distinguished by his tireless wit and flamboyant personality, providing the inspiration for the character of Sheridan Whiteside in the play The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Aleck Woollcott garnered recognition for his contributions to The New Yorker, particularly his work as drama critic, and his column "Shouts and Murmurs". Woollcott additionally hosted a weekly radio show, "The Town Crier", 1929–42.

Quotes

 * The two oldest professions in the world — ruined by amateurs.
 * On actors and prostitutes, from his column, as republished in Shouts and Murmurs: Echoes of a Thousand and One First Nights (1922), p. 57.

 * Once in pre-war days, when curiously-bonneted women drivers were familiar sights at the taxi-wheels, I cried out to one in my dismay: "Is there no speed limit in this mad city?" "Oh, yes, monsieur," she answered sweetly over her shoulder, "but no one has ever succeeded in reaching it."
 * "The Paris Taxi-Driver Considered as an Artist," in Enchanted Aisles (1924).

 * Well, if I were thus rationed in this article and could have but one adjective for George Gershwin, that adjective would be "ingenuous." Ingenuous at and about his piano. Once an occasional composer named Oscar Levant stood beside that piano while those sure, sinewy, catlike Gershwin fingers beat their brilliant drum-fire—the tumultuous cascade of the "Rhapsody In Blue," the amorous languor of "The Man I Love," the impish glee of "Fascinating Rhythm," the fine, jaunty, dust-spurning scorn of "Strike Up the Band." If the performer was familiar with the work of any other composer, he gave no evidence of it. Levant (who, by the way, makes a fleeting appearance in the new Dashlell Hammett book, under the guise of Levi Oscant) could be heard mutterIng under his breath, "An evening with Gershwin Is a Gershwln evening." "I wonder," said our young composer dreamily, "if my music will be played a hundred years from now." "It certainly will be," said the bitter Levant,"if you are still around."
 * "George the Ingenuous" in Cosmopolitan (November 1933); reprinted in Ch. IV: "'...A Young Colossus...'" from Gershwin Remembered (1992) by Edward Jablonski, pp. 44-45

 * All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
 * "The Knock at the Stage Door" in Reader's Digest (December 1933); also in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases : British and American, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day (1986) by Eric Partridge and Paul Beale, ISBN 041505916X, ISBN 9780415059169.

 * At 83 Shaw's mind was perhaps not quite as good as it used to be, but it was still better than anyone else's.
 * Referring to George Bernard Shaw in While Rome Burns (1934).

 * I've never had the impertinence to be sorry for Helen Keller. I'd as soon be sorry for Niagara Falls. But now as I bring the story up to date, I'm shriveled with shame when I recall that at times in my life — my easy life — I've actually been sorry for myself. You too? We've got our nerve, haven't we?
 * Radio Memorial for Anne Sullivan Macy (1936).

 * I have no need of your God-damned sympathy. I only wish to be entertained by some of your grosser reminiscences.
 * Letter to Rex O'Malley (1942).

 * [You look like] a dishonest Abe Lincoln.
 * Describing Harold Ross, fellow Round Table member and founder of The New Yorker, as quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) by Clifton Fadiman, Charles Lincoln Van Doren, p. 461; variants of this quote begin "He looks like..." "He looked like..." etc.

 * Alexander Woollcott: What could be rarer than a Woollcott First Edition? Franklin Pierce Adams: A Woollcott second edition.
 * At the Algonquin Round Table, as Woollcott was autographing one of his books and enjoying being the center of attention.

Misattributed

 * I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.
 * Reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 132.

Quotes about Woolcott

 * Dorothy Parker and I were standing on the sidewalk during the intermission of a Shubert opening night when the Alexander Woolcott, his rotund figure draped in an inverness cape, came toward us. I say "us" but I mean "her." Woolcott rarely wasted his minutes on anyone less than a potential celebrity, and not being very potential, I had already been introduced to him for at least the tenth time. "Why don't you two come back to my apartment after the curtain comes down, when this mountain of crap is en route to Kane's warehouse? You can have a drink with Junior while I'm writing the obit, and then perhaps a game of anagrams, if this faylow," meaning me, "I never remember his name, can spell." [...] It was the beginning of an attentive friendship, as I could judge by the number and caliber of clever insults launched in my direction. I became a regular at his Sunday breakfasts where I met the by-liners of the city and its theatrical stars. For Woolcott it was always a command performance. He worked at his friendships, and despaired when any one of his chosen group misinterpreted his abuse. Au fond sentimental as Shirley Temple underneath that biting exterior, he refused to be criticized himself.
 * Howard Dietz, in Dancing in the Dark (1974), pp. 80, 81

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title: Alexander Woollcott


text:
Chris Rock

Christopher Julius Rock (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, producer and director.

Quotes

 * You can't beat white people, you can only knock them out.
 * Chris Rock on Real Time with Bill Maher, September 26, 2008

 * You can't be happy that fire cooks your food and be mad it burns your fingertips.
 * In regards to fame

 * I hope that Live Earth ends global warming the same way the Live Aid ended world poverty.
 * In an interview at Live Earth in London

 * Comedy is the blues for people who can't sing.

 * Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special.

 * Our next presenter is the first woman to ever breast-feed an Apple – Gwyneth Paltrow.
 * At the Academy Awards as host

 * The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, "If you'd done that in the movie, you'd have won an Oscar, girl."
 * At the Academy Awards as host

 * Have you been watching American Idol? They have Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul judging the singing. Paula Abdul?! Getting Paula Abdul to judge a singing contest is like getting Christopher Reeve to judge a dance contest!

 * When I heard they were trying and get rid of the word "nigga", I told my accountant to buy 800 shares of "coon".

 * You won't be able to take your eyes off the next four presenters: Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz.
 * At the Academy Awards as host

 * George Bush hates midgets.
 * At a concert supporting Katrina Relief, in reference to Kanye West's comment

 * Yo, what's up! This is Chris Rock, and I'm with my man Lil Jon, and we stay in the club! We live in the club! We die in the club! We get our car washed in the club! We go to school in the club! We go to the cleaners in the club! We do everything in the motherfucking club! We go to church in the club! We never leave the motherfucking club! We pay our taxes in the club! We go to library in the club!
 * In Lil Jon's CD Crunk Juice: Track 15

 * Black Santa Claus caused more tears than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
 * From Everybody Hates Chris second season episode, "Everybody Hates Chris"

 * They don't want you to vote. If they did, we wouldn't vote on a Tuesday. In November. You ever throw a party on a Tuesday? No. Because nobody would come.

 * Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks
 * , quoted in

/>White people have gotten less crazy. That's all. [...]You can say “there's progress” and all of this. But when you say there's progress, but you're acting like what happened before wasn't crazy.“Oh, segregation, we've made a lot of progress and there's no more segregation”?— Segregation's retarded. It's crazy to think you're better than somebody, and they can't eat with you and segr— that's crazy! That's insane behavior! Just to think that, on any level— that's kind of insane!So, you can say “black people have made progress”, but to say “black people have made progress” would mean we deserved to be segregated. The reality is: white people got less crazy.My father didn't suddenly deserve to eat with people because he earned it. The people who were denying him his rights got less crazy. And that's what, progressively, has happened throughout the years. People are now getting less crazy about gay people. People are crazy.
 * [Interviewer asks: "How do you feel like things have changed over the past couple decades?"]<br
 * in an interview on CBC Radio One "Q", host Jian Ghomeshi (Youtube link, video named "Chris Rock "White People Have Gotten Less Crazy"), accessed 2013-09-11

"Uh, which one?" "The first one you see singing Cardi B." That's right. I mean, honestly, I wanna live in a world with real equality. I want to live in a world where an equal amount of white kids are shot every month. An equal world. I want to see white mothers on TV crying. Standing next to Al Sharpton. Talking about, "We need justice for Chad. We need justice for Chad. He was just coming home from racquetball practice."
 * You would think that cops would occasionally shoot a white kid, just to make it look good. You'd think every couple of months they'd look at their dead nigga calendar and go, "Oh my God, we're up to 16. We gotta shoot a white kid quick."
 * Chris Rock: Tamborine (2018), NetFlix, @1:31-2:40

 * Here's the thing. I know it's hard being a cop. I know it's hard. I know that shit's dangerous. I know it is, OK? But some jobs can't have bad apples. OK? Some jobs, everybody gotta be good. Like— pilots. You know? American Airlines can't be like, "You know, most of our pilots like to land. We just got a few bad apples, that like to crash into mountains. Please bear with us."
 * Chris Rock: Tamborine (2018), NetFlix

 * Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it, all right?
 * Joking about Will Smith's wife Jada Pinkett Smith at the 94th Academy Awards (27 March 2022).

 * Oh, wow! Wow! Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. [...] That was a... greatest night in the history of television, okay.
 * After being hit by Will Smith during their altercation at the 94th Academy Awards (27 March 2022).

Bring the Pain (HBO, 1996)

 * Do you know what the good side of crack is? If you're up at the right hour, you can get a VCR for $1.50. You can furnish your whole house for $10.95.
 * A black man failing black history... ain't that some sad shit..... cuz you know, fat people don't fail cooking!
 * People are starving all over the world, what do you mean, "red meat will kill you"? Don't eat no red meat? No, don't eat no green meat. If you lucky enough to get your hands on a steak, bite the shit out of it!
 * We got so much food in America we're allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain't allergic to shit. You think anyone in Rwanda's got a fucking lactose intolerance?!
 * That shit wasn't about race … that shit was about fame. If O.J. wasn't famous, he'd be in jail right now. If O.J. drove a bus, he wouldn't even be O.J. He'd be Orenthal the Bus Driving Murderer.
 * So you gotta look at OJ's situation. He's paying $25,000 a month in alimony, got another man driving around in his car and fucking his wife in a house he's still paying the mortgage on. Now I'm not saying he should have killed her... but I understand.
 * There's a lot of racism going on. Who's more racist, black people or white people? Black people! You know why? Because we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people. There's some shit going on with black people right now. It's like a civil war going on with black people. And there's two sides, there's black people and there's niggas. The niggas have got to go. Everytime a black person wanna have a good time, ignorant-ass niggas fuck it up. You can't have shit when you got niggas around, you can't have shit. You can't have no big screen TV! You can have it, but you better move it in at 3 in the morning. Paint it white, hope niggas think it's a bassinet. Can't have shit in your house! Why?! Because niggas will break into your house. Niggas will live next door to you break into your house, come over the next day and go, "I heard you got robbed." Nigga, you know you robbed me. You didn't see shit 'cause you was doing shit! You can't go see a movie opening day, you know why? 'Cause niggas is shooting at the screen! What kind of ignorant shit is that? "This movie's so good I gotta bust a cap in here!" You know the worst thing about niggas? Niggas always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A nigga will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A nigga will say some shit like, "I take care of my kids." You're supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? "I ain't never been to jail!" What do you want, a cookie?! You're not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!
 * Community college is like a disco with books: "Here's ten dollars; let me get my learn on!"
 * Every man has to settle down eventually. You know why you gotta settle down eventually? Because you don't want to be the old guy in the club. You know what I'm talking about. Every club you go into, there's always some old guy. He ain't really old, just a little too old to be in the club.
 * I hate niggas! I hate em! I wish they'd let me join the Ku Klux Klan! Shit, I'd be doing a drive-by from here to Brooklyn!
 * You know what they say, "There's no reason to ever hit a woman." Shit! There's a reason to hit everybody. You just don't do it. Shit, there's a reason to kick an old man down a flight of stairs. You just don't do it. Ain't nobody above an ass-whooping.
 * You know what GED stands for? Good Enough Diploma.

Roll with the New (Album, 1997)

 * Yo, man. R&B sucks. I mean it's a couple of people that float, but, look, for the most part, the genre sucks. Just a bunch of people singing over rap beats. You don't like a rap record? Sing over it! Everybody talking them label. "Label this, label that!" Hey, Smokey Robinson wasn't singing about Motown! Look, the Isley Brothers wasn't going "Teaneck in the motherfuckin' house". The Jacksons were not singing about Epic because nobody gave a fuck!
 * Hey, this is a joke that I wrote a long time ago. I actually, I really really, wrote this joke. [Following in reverse] So I'm walking down the street, right? And I saw this prostitute, right? And I said, 'How much?' She said, 'For $300, I'll do anything you want.' I said, 'Bitch, paint my house!'

Bigger and Blacker (Album Version, 1999)

 * Yo, my first choice for the producer of this album was not Prince Paul. It was Roger Troutman and the group Zapp. Let's see how that would have sounded. (The following run through a Talk box): A black man boy said to a Cadillac dealer. And he's looking at some Cadillacs. And the dealer of Zohan says "are you thinking of buying a Cadillac?" And, he says, "No, I'm buying a Cadillac. I'm thinking of pussy... yeah!"
 * So, it's last Wednesday, right? I'm chilling' in my house in a pair of and getting ready to watch the game. You know what she had the nerve to say? Exactly! I thought the woman was crazy. But, then, you know what else she wanted me to do? So, I'm in my car, right? "Uh, Chris. I'm gonna tell you something." Nigga, what? You're wanted in 18 states and 2 territories! Nigga, what did you do? With a seal? How the hell you gonna do something like that with a seal? You know, that don't sound too bad. I'll try it with my woman. Like that? Get outta here! With oil? So, I'm dead! Just chilling' in Heaven! With my man Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Biggie, Tupac, Vanilla, my Bu2u, Sam Kinison and there's God. And I'm like, "God, you know everything. I can ask you one question. Who won the game?"
 * The Trenchcoat Mafia. "Nobody will play with us, we have no friends, we're the Trenchcoat Mafia." Hell, I saw the yearbook picture, it was six of 'em! I ain't have six friends in high school. I don't got six friends now! Shit, that's 3-on-3 with a half-court!
 * Everybody want to know what the kids was listening to, what kind of music they was listening to, or what kind of movies they was watching. Who gives a fuck what they was watching? Whatever happened to CRAZY?
 * You don't need no gun control. You know what you need? We need some bullet control. We need to control the bullets! That's right. I think all bullets should cost $5,000. You know why? Because if a bullet costs $5,000, there would be more innocent bystanders. Every time somebody gets shot, people would be like, "Damn, he must've did something. Shit, they put $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass!" And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost $5,000. "Man, I would blow your fucking head off ... if I could afford it! I'm gonna get me another job, I'm gonna start saving some money, and you're a dead man! You better hope I can't get no bullets on layaway!"
 * See, even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you won't have to go to no doctor to get it out, whoever shot you will take that bullet back! "I believe you got my property!"

Never Scared (HBO, 2004)

 * I mean, they don't grade fathers. But if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up.
 * My favorite song right now is impossible to defend. It's impossible. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for liking this fucking song. Lil Jon. You know that shit: "To the window! To the wall! [crowd sings along] 'Till the sweat drip from my balls! Skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet!" You go to clubs, you see girls dance to that shit. "Till the sweat drip from my balls! Till the sweat drip from my balls! From my balls! From my balls! My balls! Skeet, Skeet Skeet!" I feel sorry for the guys that gotta pick a wife out of this bunch. It's like, "Daddy, where'd you meet Mommy?" "Oh, she was singing about balls at a club. Skeet, skeet, skeet!"
 * "Daddy, can we talk?" "Hey, I'm watching the game!" "I'll show you! I'll dance naked to Mötley Crue records! I'm gonna change my name to Cina Buns and I'm gonna wear clear heels!" When did clear heels become the new whore uniform? When did that happen? Was there a big ho convention, and all the hoes got together and said, "We need something new! Something that just says nasty" And one girl said, "I got it! Clear heels!" "Ooh, girl, you disgusting!"
 * Women don't care, man. If the beat's all right, she will dance all night! I've seen girls on the floor dancing to the nastiest shit ever made. It's like, "Smack her with a dick, smack her with a dick! … I put a dick in the ear, a dick in the ear! … Fuck her in the eye, fuck her in the eye! … Blind the bitch, blind the bitch, blind the bitch, blind the bitch with cum!"
 * If you mention to a woman that the song is disgusting and misogynistic, they all give you the same answer: "He ain't talking 'bout me!" Smack her with a dick, smack her with a dick … He said your name! "No, he didn't!" Smack her with a dick, smack her with a dick …
 * You know those guys that go to the strip club at the daytime? If you're at a strip club and the sun is out, you got some problems!
 * You know those guys that eat at the strip club? Eat the buffet? How the fuck could you eat in a nasty-ass strip club? What? Are you THAT hungry? Motherfucker, go to Mickey D's or some shit! Not even Rwandan refugees eat that shit! At a damn strip club! Titties and tater tots don't mix!
 * You know the stripper myth? There's a stripper myth that's being perpetuated throughout society. The myth is, I'm strippin' to pay my tuition. No you're not! There's no strippers in college! There's no clear heels in biology! Shit, man, I didn't know they had a college that only took one-dollar bills. And if they got so many strippers at college, how come I never got a smart lap dance? I never got a girl that sat on my lap and said, If I was you, I would diversify my portfolio. You know, ever since the end of the Cold War, I find NATO obsolete!.
 * The government hates rap. That's why they don't arrest anybody that kills rappers! Only the good ones are dead, man! Only the good ones: Biggie dead, Tupac dead, Vanilla Ice still alive! They don't fill out a police report. They don't even have a chalk line when it's a dead rapper, they just take a piss around the body.
 * Hey, man don't let all this celebrity garbage fool you. It's all just a trick to get your mind...off...the...war. I think Bush sent that girl to Kobe's room. Bush sent that girl to Kobe's room, Bush sent that little boy to Michael Jackson's house. Bush killed Laci Peterson. Bush was fucking Paris Hilton in that video. All to get your mind off the war. Bush lied to me, they all lied to me: "We gotta go to Iraq because they're the most dangerous country on Earth. They're the most dangerous regime in the world." If they're so dangerous, how come it only took two weeks to take over the whole fucking country? Shit, man, you couldn't take over Baltimore in two weeks.
 * White man makes guns. Big deal, nobody gives a fuck, kids shoot each other at school, nobody gives a fuck. White man makes guns? No problem. Black rapper says "guns"? Congressional hearing. "Oh, my God, that nigga said gun, and he rhymed it with fun"!
 * Are we so desperate for entertainment that we will fall for a trickless magician?? Where the fuck's the trick? Saw a woman in half. Pull a rabbit out of a hat. Do something! What tricks does this guy have? "I'm in a box...and I ain't gonna eat". "I'm in a box...and I ain't gonna eat"!! That ain't no trick! That's called living in the projects!
 * Ed Bradley looked at Michael Jackson like he wanted to say, "Nigga, is you crazy?" Like he wanted to take the the 60 Minutes clock and push the shit forward to say, "Nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you?" "I thought you said it was 60 minutes …" "It's 10 minutes, get outta here! You nutty nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you?"
 * On Michael Jackson appearing on 60 Minutes
 * Black people dominate every physical activity in the United States of America. We're only 10% of the population, we're 90% of the Final Four. Okay? We fucking dominate all this shit! Okay? Basketball, baseball, football, boxing, track- even golf and tennis! And as soon they make a heated hockey rink, we're gonna take that shit, too. Motherfuck Wayne Gretzky. Wait 'till you see LeBron on some skates. You ain't seen shit yet! He just gonna have one skate, chilling. "What's up?" He won't even have a stick, he'll just smack the puck in with his dick. Pow! "Slapshot, bee-otch!"
 * That tiger ain't go crazy; that tiger went tiger! You know when he was really crazy? When he was riding around on a unicycle with a Hitler helmet on! "Oh, shit! I'm a crazy tiger!"
 * A black C student can't do shit with his life. A black C student can't be a manager at Burger King. Meanwhile, a white C student just happens to be the President of the United States.
 * Remember when we was young, everybody used to have these arguments about who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Prince won!
 * R. Kelly's got a lot of balls. Talking about "it ain't me." Got a damn sex tape out; "it ain't me." Motherfucker, we know what you look like. That's you, okay? There's a damn Soul Train award right next to the bed.
 * What is on Kobe's mind? Going to Colorado, around all these white people, and not bringing Johnnie Cochran? Well then they say, "well if you hire Johnnie Cochran, you're going to look guilty." Yeah, but you going home! You want to look innocent in jail? I'd rather look guilty at the mall.
 * It's hard to defend "I've got hoes in different area codes". It's hard to defend "move, bitch, get out the way!" It's hard to break it down intellectually … "Well, as you can see, there's a bitch in his way, that he needs to move. Thus the term, "move, bitch, get out the way". You need to open your eyes so you can get the bitches out of your way!"
 * You know the only thing you can do to stop your man from cheating? The only thing you can do … is be there. Where? There! Wherever he's thinking about fucking, that's it. Just be right there. And even then he still might lose your ass. He's like, "Honey, look! A Sale! Let me go fuck this bitch right now!"
 * If you wanna get away with murder, all you gotta do is shoot somebody in the head and put a demo tape in their pocket! "This is a rap killing. Let's go home!"
 * Everybody's so busy wanting to be down with the gang. "I'm conservative", "I'm liberal", "I'm conservative". Bullshit! Be a fucking person! Lis-ten! Let it swirl around your head. Then form your opinion. No normal, decent person is one thing, okay? I've got some shit I'm conservative about, I've got some shit I'm liberal about. Crime, I'm conservative. Prostitution, I'm liberal!
 * Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his check … is wealthy. "Ah, here you go, Shaq. Go buy yourself a bouncing car. Bling, bling!"
 * You know the beautiful thing about the gay marriage issue? It's the absolute only issue that the President will answer. The President don't give a fuck. He will give you a straight answer on gay marriage. "Uh, Mr. President, what about the war? When's it gonna end?" "Well, you never know. We're talking to people, and we're looking for stuff, and we might find it, we might not, and it's out there, we're gonna get it, you never know. How's it going? Yeah!" "Uh, Mr. President, what about the economy, when's it gonna pick up?" "Well, you never know, we're talking to people, and economic indicators indicate that indications are coming to the indicator. You know what I'm saying? All right!" "Uh, Mr. President, what about gay marriage?" "Fuck them faggots!"
 * You can be married and bored, or single and lonely. Ain't no happiness nowhere.
 * If you haven't contemplated murder, you ain't been in love. If you haven't seriously thought about killing a motherfucker, you ain't been in love. If you haven't had a can of rat poison in your hand and looked at it for forty-five minutes straight, you ain't been in love. If you haven't bought a shovel and a bag and a rug to roll their ass up in, you ain't been in love. If you haven't practiced your alibi in front of the mirror, you ain't been in love. And the only thing that's stopped you from killing this motherfucker was a episode of CSI: "Oh man, they thorough. I better make up. They might catch my ass."
 * See... Relationships are hard, man. For order, for any relationship to work, both people have to be on the same page, both people have to have the same focus, and we all know what that page is. We all know what that focus is. In order for the relationship to work both people have to have the same focus, and what's that focus? That focus is all about HER! It's all about her!
 * Fellas, when you wake up in the morning, you should look yourself in the mirror and say, "FUCK YOU! Fuck your hopes, fuck your dreams, fuck your plans … fuck everything you thought this life was going to bring to you. Now let's go out there and try to make this bitch happy."
 * Women hate women. You get any two girlfriends in this room, been girlfriends for twenty five years, you put a man in between them … "fuck that bitch," "fuck that bitch." Guys are not like that. Guys actually think that there are other fish in the sea, and if a guy introduces his boy to his new girlfriend, and when they walk away, his boy goes, "Oh man, she's nice, I gotta get me a girl like that." If a woman introduces her new man to her girlfriend, and they walk away, her girlfriend goes, "I gotta get him, and I will slit that bitch's throat to do it." Every girl in here got a girlfriend they don't trust around their man.
 * But here's what they don't tell you. You can never make a woman happy, it's impossible. I've never met a happy woman in my life. They're always complaining about something. You can fuck a woman with a diamond dick and make her come ten times, and she'll still complain. "Why did you make me come so hard? This diamond dick is cloudy, why didn't you go to Tiffany's? You're so fucking cheap."
 * "What's in the tea?" "Water, bitch!"
 * Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just to spice things up.
 * Even if you meet the perfect person, it ain't gonna be at the perfect time. You're married, they're single. That's right. You're Jewish, they're Palestinian. You're a Mexican, they're a raccoon. You're a black woman, he's a black man.
 * God will send you a double date with the perfect couple. Have you ever made the mistake of going on a double date with the perfect couple? You're in the middle of your bullshit relationship and you actually sit down with two people that are actually in love. You can't even eat your food cause you can't believe what the fuck you are witnessing. You got a fork in your hand like, "Oh shit! He's really listening to what she's got to say! Wow! They really like being around each other! Man, we can't hang with them no more, they gonna break us up. Can't let these happy motherfuckers fuck up my life!"
 * So if you're black or brown, you can make money in America, you can get rich in America … but whatever you decide to do, it better be positive, 'cause if one person is harmed, you will be destroyed. You see Oprah, she just be giving away money. She's trying keep the Feds off her back.
 * We can't have gay marriage 'cause marriage is sacred, it happens in the church. Marriage is sacred, it's sacred. No, it's not, not in America, not in a country that watches Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? and The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and Who Wants to Marry a Midget. Get the fuck outta here. Shit, Michael Jackson got married, how fucking sacred is that shit?
 * White man makes alcohol. Tastes great, I love it, you love it, we all love it. Kills motherfuckers every single day. Okay? Some of y'all ain't even make it home tonight 'cause of alcohol. You'll be like, "Oh man, that Chris Rock sure is funny, oh! Shit!" But it's all right 'cause it's all white. White man makes Cigarettes, the most dangerous product known to man. Cigarettes are so fucking dangerous it kills motherfuckers that don't smoke, okay? That's how fucking dangerous cigarettes are, okay? Yes, first hand smoke, second hand smoke. People talking out of their necks into a machine like, "Hey, what's up, man, I love cigarettes." But it's all right 'cause it's all white. Could you imagine if the Philip Morris family was a bunch of jheri-curled niggas from Mississippi? Do you know how illegal a pack of cigarettes would be? You would get fifty years just for a carton of Newports. Shit. But it's all right, 'cause it's all white.
 * So think about the poor slave who could read, but was scared to teach their kids to read for fear they would be killing their kids. Think about the poor slave that rode to town every week. Think about the poor slave who rode the buggy to town every week. Riding the buggy … riding the buggy, and he could read, and is riding the buggy and he's riding the buggy. And up ahead he sees a busy intersection, and is riding the buggy and he's riding the buggy. Then he sees a STOP sign … Now he's in a big dilemma. "If I go through this intersection, I'm a have a accident. If I stop, these crackers will kill me." And he's riding the buggy, and in the last minute he says "fuck it", goes through the intersection, has a big ol' accident. Almost kills somebody. Then the police come: "Nigga, what is wrong with you? Nigga, what the fuck is wrong with you? You could have killed somebody, nigga. Didn't see that stop sign?" "Oh, I don't know what you talking about, sir." "You didn't see that stop sign, that stop sign back there?" "Oh, you mean that octagon thing." "Nigga, who taught you octagon?"
 * It's beautiful that abortion is legal in America. I love going to abortion rallies to pick up women, 'cause you know they're fucking. You ain't gonna find a bunch of virgins at the abortion rally. You might even see some clear heels!
 * Oh the abortion issue, it's a woman's issue. When a woman get pregnant, she don't want to hear shit from the man. Fuck you, motherfuck you, I don't need you. Unless she decides to have the baby and she's like, "Where my check?"
 * When a woman get pregnant, it's an issue between her and her girlfriends. When a woman get pregnant, her and her girlfriends form an abortion tribunal, and they vote on the child like it was Survivor. Then the first girlfriend throws in her two cents: "Child, you should have that baby, that man got some good hair, it's wavy, it's wavy." Then second girlfriend throws in her two cents: "Girl, why are we even talking about this? Ain't we supposed to go to Cancun next weekend? Get rid of that baby." And that's how life is decided in America.
 * The number one reason people hate America: the number one reason is because of our religion. Americans worship money, we worship money. Separate God from school, separate God from work, separate God from government, but on your money it says in God we trust. All my life I've been looking for God, and He's right in my pocket. Americans worship money, and we all go to the same church, the church of ATM. Everywhere you look there's a new branch popping up … remind you about how much money you got and how much money you don't got. And if you got less than twenty dollars, the machine won't even talk to you. The machine is like, "You better go see a teller." You ever go to a teller and try to take out eight dollars and fifty cents? Oh, it's disgusting … oh man, you gotta wait on that long ass line, people doing real transactions in front of you, you get on to the fucking front, you fill out your form, eight fifty. The fucking teller looks at it, she look at you, she looks at the check, she don't even take the money out of the drawer, she take it out of her pocket, "Here you go, get outta here." And here's something, man. Drugs are illegal, but ATM machines are open twenty-four hours a day. Twenty-four hours a day. For who? Who the fuck is it open for? Have you ever taken out three hundred dollars at four o'clock in the morning for something positive? Shit, when you press that machine at four o'clock in the morning, I think a psychiatrist should pop up on the screen and go, "Come on, man, save your money, man. Don't buy drugs, buy some rims. They spinning, nigga, they spinning, they spinning, nigga, they spinning." Americans worship money. Shit, you know why banks are closed on Sunday? 'Cause if they wasn't, church would be empty.
 * Is it just me, or is he the greasiest nigga you ever seen in your life? Every time Jermaine comes on, I gotta wipe the grease off the screen! Can't see shit! Jermaine must have been on. Even the police can't catch his ass, 'cause every time they try, he just slips out! They be like, "Somebody throw some sand on that nigga! Please!"
 * Shit, every woman in here got a girlfriend they don't trust around their man. A good girlfriend too, it's like, "Yeah, I'll go shopping with her, but I ain't gonna leave that bitch alone with my man for five minutes, no." I remember one time, I was at a restaurant with me, my wife, and her girlfriend. And my wife gets up and goes, "Honey, I'm going to the bathroom." And I'm like, "All right, honey, I'll see you when you get back." And she goes, "No, you coming with me!" She made me come with her to the bathroom! And she did the right thing, 'cause I'd have fucked the girl; I'da fucked her. I'd have fucked her on a damn quesadilla, I didn't give a fuck.
 * Oprah is rich, Bill Gates is wealthy. If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah's money, he'd jump out a fuckin' window and slit his throat on the way down saying, "I can't even put gas in my plane!"

Never Scared (Album Version, 2005)

 * [In deep voice] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to WLOW, Low Radio. Now a lot of rappers out there would like to tell the girls to get low, but tonight we're gonna tell you to get lower. That's right! In the ground, under the ground! Get in the mud, bitch! Dig to China, hoe! I don't even know why the fuck you are standing! It's time for you to get lower! Now some of you bitches are still standing, and I don't understand that, 'cuz I want y'all to get low! I'm talking REAL low! I want you so low that you can change an ant's transmission! I want you so low that Aquaman says "Bitch, what the fuck are you doing under the ocean!?"
 * Hey, man, fuck y'all! I ain't telling you motherfuckers shit! You motherfuckers can suck my dick! I don't know what the fuck you talking about! Let me get the fuck out of this motherfucker, 'cuz I got shit to do, bitch!
 * I don't give a fuck! So, what!? Motherfuck the tiger! I'd be shot in the tooth, motherfucker! I don't give a fuck about your bee-otches!
 * Who'd... you think I'd give a fuck!? I don't give a fuck about no motherfucking chainsaw! I got two black wives, motherfucker! Fuck y'all!
 * You mean to tell me that Jamaicans invented sugar, reggae and the best drug on Earth and the white man makes all the money!?
 * You mean to tell me that Hawaiians came up with pineapples, resorts, hula hoops, Magnum P.I. and the best damn punch in the world and they don't get no money from it!?
 * You mean to tell me that for the last sixty years, the white man's been traveling to outer space, murdering Martians, telling us there's no life up there, building casinos and resorts while he fucks some of the finest bitches in the galaxy, and niggas just want rims!?

Kill the Messenger (2008)
Quotes from Kill the Messenger:
 * George Bush has fucked up so bad, he made it hard for a white man to run for president! People are like "give me a black man, a white woman, a giraffe, a zebra...anything but another white man! That last one fucked up my roof!"
 * [on John McCain] I don't need a president with a bucket list!
 * [on John McCain being too old] When you die at 72, no matter what you die of, it's natural causes. Even if you get hit by a truck, it's natural causes. 'Cause if you was younger, you'd have got out the way!
 * [on John McCain being in a POW camp] I don't wanna vote for nobody who got captured, I wanna vote for the motherfucker that got away!
 * [in South Africa] Barack Obama! A black man! With a black name! I know that ain't that black here, but in America that's about as black as a name could get. Barack Obama! That's right next to Dikembe Mutombo. That's right. Barack, man, he don't let his blackness sneak up on you. Y'know, if his name was Bob Jones or something, it might take you two or three weeks to realize he black. But as soon as you hear "Barack Obama"...you expect to see a brother with a spear! Just standin' on top of a dead lion! Barack Obama! You expect to see the bass player from the Commodores come out! [sings and mimes playing bass] "Too hot ta trot, now, baby, too hot ta trot, bay-by!" I'm not talkin' about Lionel Richie, I'm talkin' about them shiny niggas behind him!
 * [about Obama] We're not just voting for him 'cause he's black, we're voting for him 'cause he's black and qualified. That's why we're voting for the motherfucker. Yeah. That's why we behind him. It's not like we're voting for Flavor Flav. "Yeeeeah, boooooy! Flavor Flaaaav!" Hey, I love Flavor. Lovin' him for 20 years. I love the "Flavor of Love" show; I think it's quite entertainin'. But Flavor Flav must be killed. In order for black people to truly reach the promised land, Flavor Flav has to be shot. These are important times! We got a black man runnin' for President! We don't need a nigger runnin' around with a fuckin' clock around his neck and a Viking hat on his head! "Not this year, Flav, put a suit on! Nigga, put a suit on!"
 * Yo, it's gonna be hard for Barack Obama to be President, 'cause Barack Obama has to overcome a handicap that the other candidate does not have to overcome. That's right. It's gonna be hard for Barack Obama to be President because Barack Obama has...a black wife. And I don't think a black lady can be First Lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it. I said it in Johannesburg, I said it! [cuts to London] I said it in London, England, I said that shit! [cuts to New York] I said it at the Apollo Theatre, I said that shit! I don't believe a black woman could be First Lady, 'cause you know why? Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship! [some women boo] Don't get me wrong, a black woman could be President with no problem. First Lady--too much shuttin' up in that job. Can you imagine tellin' your black wife that you President? "Honey, I won, I'm President!" "No, we President! And I want my girlfriends in the cabinet! I want Kiki to be Secretary of Defense! She can fight, she can fight."
 * George Bush is still in charge. And nobody gives less of a fuck than George Bush. You think you don't give a fuck? Bush don't give a fuck. Nobody gives less of a fuck than George Bush. If you was hangin' from a cliff, gettin' ready to fall to your death--that's right--and Bush was at the top of the cliff, and all you needed was a fuck to save your life, and Bush had a pocket full of fucks...he wouldn't give you one. "Hey, Bush, I need a fuck!" "Ohh, you know I don't give a fuck. Here's a fuck...psych!"
 * I will give you an example of how race affects my life. I live in a place called Alpine, New Jersey. Live in Alpine, New Jersey, right? My house costs millions of dollars. [some whistles and cheers from the audience] Don't hate the player, hate the game. In my neighborhood, there are four black people. Hundreds of houses, four black people. Who are these black people? Well, there's me, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z and Eddie Murphy. Only black people in the whole neighborhood. So let's break it down, let's break it down: me, I'm a decent comedian. I'm a'ight. [applause] Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers to ever walk the Earth. Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers to ever live. Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors to ever, ever do it. Do you know what the white man who lives next door to me does for a living? He's a fucking dentist! He ain't the best dentist in the world...he ain't going to the dental hall of fame...he don't get plaques for getting rid of plaque. He's just a yank-your-tooth-out dentist. See, the black man gotta fly to get to somethin' the white man can walk to.
 * There's nothin' a white person could ever say to me that will ever catch me off-guard. Ever! I'm always lookin' for some racism! No matter where the fuck I'm at, I'm like "where the racism at? Where it at, where it at, where it at?" No matter where I'm at. I could be sittin' down with Regis Philbin, doin' an interview, talkin' about Madagascar 2, sayin' "yeah, Regis, Madagascar 2's real good, man. I play a zebra again! Oh, this motherfucker's great!" And right in the middle of the interview, Regis'll pull a pencil out of his pocket, stab me in the neck and say "take that, ya fuckin' nigger! Take that, ya dirty, greasy nigger! Take that, ya fuckin' nigger!" And I'd be like "I shoulda seen it comin'. I let Regis get too close." I'll be mad at me. I'll apologize--"hey, man, I left my neck all out, man. I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry."
 * [on Isaiah Washington being fired] What if the person that he called a faggot...was acting like a faggot? You don't have to be gay to act like a faggot. You don't even have to be a man to act like a faggot. Anybody can act like a faggot. Let me give you an example: I love Gwen Stefani. I think No Doubt is one of the best groups in the world; I keep a No Doubt CD in my car and I sing that shit to the end. I'm like "don't speak, I know just what you're sayin', oh, please stop explainin'"...I won't even get out my car 'til the shit's over. I'm like "you know you're good, you know you're real good...la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la, [high pitched] Don't! Don't!" I fuckin' love me some Gwen Stefani! Now, if I'm drivin' my car, and I'm at the light, and you in the car behind me, and the light's red, and I'm just sittin' there blasting some Gwen Stefani and I'm like "ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback!" And you in the car behind me and the light's red--cool. But then the light turns green. And I don't see it, because I'm in Gwen Stefani heaven. And I'm just goin' "Ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback girl! Ain't no hollaback!" Now the light starts fuckin' blinking! It's gettin' ready to turn red again, and I *still* don't see it, and I'm in my car going "This shit is bananas! B-na-na-na-nas! This shit is bananas! B-na-na-na-nas!" Now if you in the car behind me, and that light's gettin' ready to turn red, and I'm going "this shit is bananas! B-na-na-na-nas!" If you in the car behind me, you have the right to go "HEY, FAGGOT! The light's about to change!" Shit, even Elton John would call me a faggot at that moment. It's not the word, it's the context in which the word is bein' said!
 * Shit, last year the NAACP had a funeral for the word "nigger"! Well, tonight is Easter!
 * So the question is, can white people say "nigger"? And the answer's the same: "Not really." Oh there's some exceptions like, "Fuck me harder, nigger!" Lot of white women trying not to laugh in front of their husbands right now. "Honey I was in college! I had to see what it was about! He made me say it!"
 * But the question remains the same: Can white people say "nigger"? And the answer's the same: not really. But wait a minute, there's one exception. There's one exception. There's one instance where white people can say nigger. And I'ma let it out tonight. I'ma let it out here in Johannesburg. The one time that white people can say nigger. White people are like "this is what I paid for! It's a fuckin' great night now!" The one time white people can say nigger: here it goes; listen closely. 'Cause I may never say this shit again. The one time white people can say nigger, OK: if it's Christmas Eve, and it's between 4:30 and 4:49 in the morning. If you white, and you're on your way to Toys 'R' Us to get your kid the last Transformer doll, and right before you walk into Toys 'R' Us, some black person runs up beside you, smacks you in the head with a brick, knocks you to the ground, stomps on your face--"take that, you cracker-ass motherfucker!" Riverdances on your head--"take that, you cracker-ass motherfucker!" Takes your money, pisses on you, and runs away--if you white, at that moment, you can say "Somebody stop that nigger!" Matter of fact, if you white and that happens to you, you can say nigger for a whole month! But you gotta walk around with the police report in your pocket. In case any black people catch you sayin' nigger, the police report will act as your freedom papers. "Hey, I heard you saying nigger; let me see your fuckin' papers. Gimme the papers; show me the papers!" [pretends to read a sheet] "Christmas Eve! 4:48! You just made it, motherfucker! Pissed on you! ...I hope they catch that nigger!"
 * On Desperate Housewives: I think they should change the name of that show from Desperate Housewives...to Ungrateful Bitches! You all are hoes bitch!

Judd Apatow Interview (2014)
from Apatow's Sick in the Head (2015) pp 61–71

 * I try never to brag but I'm probably the only person who has been on 60 Minutes twice and isn't dead.

 * I love going to the Cellar and spanking the shit out of everybody. I love going there, at my age, and having an act that's better than the guys who are fifteen or twenty years younger than me. I'm like "This is my seventh special. What's your fucking excuse?"

 * You learn more from fucking up than you do from success, unfortunately. And failure, if you don't let it defeat you, is what fuels your future success.

Quotes about Rock

 * Chris Rock is not only the best comedian in the world, he is WAY better than everyone else. Period.
 * Judd Apatow, Sick in the Head (2015) p 61

 * Comedian Chris Rock recently came out about being on the Autism spectrum; specifically, he was diagnosed with Nonverbal Learning Disorder. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he describes how clear-cut indicators (such as an inability to pick up on social cues and a tendency to take all statements hyperliterally) were ignored until his mid-fifties. Because he was an outgoing, Black comedian, Autism seemed unthinkable as an explanation for the social and emotional challenges he was facing. Rock says he downplayed his own mental health needs, too, because he'd internalized the idea only white people go to therapy.
 * Devon Price ‘’Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity’’ p 62

 * Chris Rock might be the only comedian I know who's maybe a little better at analogies than I am. He's a great analogizer.
 * Jerry Seinfeld, "Success Without Stress" Interview (22 January 2014)

title: Chris Rock


text:
User:Eliashedberg

Elias Hedberg, student - Linköping, Sweden.
 * Usually you'll find me at the Swedish Wikipedia (where you can also talk to me).

title: User:Eliashedberg


text:
Aeschylus

Aeschylus (Greek: Αἰσχύλος; 525 BC – 456 BC) was a playwright of ancient Greece, the earliest of the three greatest Greek tragedians, the others being Sophocles and Euripides.

Quotes

That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, "With our own feathers, not by others' hands, Are we now smitten."
 * So in the Libyan fable it is told
 * Fragment 63 (trans. by E. H. Plumptre), reported in Theoi

Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.
 * Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:
 * Fragment 146 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

ποία ξυνωρὶς τῆσδε καρτερωτέρα What pair is stronger than this?
 * ὅπου γὰρ ἰσχὺς συζυγοῦσι καὶ δίκη
 * For where might and justice are yoke-fellows—
 * Fragment 209

To come to me: of cureless ills thou art The one physician. Pain lays not its touch Upon a corpse.
 * O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,
 * Fragment 250 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

 * The man who does ill, ill must suffer too.
 * Fragment 267 (trans. by Plumptre)

 * A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.
 * Fragment 383, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

 * Bronze is the mirror of the form; wine, of the heart.
 * Fragment 384, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

 * It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
 * Fragment 385, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

The Persians (472 BC)

 * The English translations are by Christopher Collard (Oxford University Press, 2008), Janet Lembke and C. J. Herington (Oxford University Press, 1981), S. G. Benardete (University of Chicago Press, 1956) and Robert Potter (1777).

ὄμμα γὰρ δόμων νομίζω δεσπότου παρουσίαν.
 * Ἔστι γὰρ πλοῦτός γ᾽ ἀμεμφής, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ὀφθαλμῷ φόβος·
 * Wealth itself is blameless, but there can be fear for its precious eye; for I consider the presence of a house's master to be its saving light.
 * lines 168–169 (tr. Christopher Collard)

 * Ὤμοι, κακὸν μὲν πρῶτον ἀγγέλλειν κακά.
 * Bitter, being first to tell you bitter news.
 * line 253 (tr. Janet Lembke and C. J. Herington)

Their firmest bulwarks her heroic sons.
 * Ἀνδρῶν γὰρ ὄντων ἕρκος ἐστὶν ἀσφαλές.
 * The walls of Athens are impregnable,
 * line 349 (tr. Robert Potter)

ἐπίσταται βροτοῖσιν ὡς, ὅταν κλύδων κακῶν ἐπέλθῃ, πάντα δειμαίνειν φίλον, ὅταν δ᾽ ὁ δαίμων εὐροῇ, πεποιθέναι τὸν αὐτὸν αἰὲν ἄνεμον οὐριεῖν τύχας.
 * Φίλοι, κακῶν μὲν ὅστις ἔμπειρος κυρεῖ,
 * My friends, anyone with real experience of trouble knows how, when a surge of it comes upon them, they are apt to fear everything; but when fortune's tide is good, they trust that the same breeze will blow favourably for ever.
 * lines 598–602 (tr. Christopher Collard)

speeds toward his own ruin, a god gives him help.
 * Ἀλλ᾽, ὅταν σπεύδῃ τις αὐτός, χὠ θεὸς συνάπτεται.
 * But when a man
 * line 742 (tr. Janet Lembke and C. J. Herington)

ἄφωνα σημανοῦσιν ὄμμασιν βροτῶν ὡς οὐχ ὑπέρφευ θνητὸν ὄντα χρὴ φρονεῖν. Mute, even to the century to come, Before the eyes of men, that never, being Mortal, ought we cast our thoughts too high.
 * θῖνες νεκρῶν δὲ καὶ τριτοσπόρῳ γονῇ
 * And corpses, piled up like sand, shall witness,
 * lines 818–820 (tr. S. G. Benardete)

ἄτης, ὅθεν πάγκλαυτον ἐξαμᾷ θέρος.
 * Ὕβρις γὰρ ἐξανθοῦσ᾽ ἐκάρπωσεν στάχυν
 * Arrogance in full bloom bears a crop of ruinous folly from which it reaps a harvest all of tears.
 * lines 821–822 (tr. Christopher Collard)

The Suppliants
πόνου δ᾽ ἴδοις ἂν οὐδαμοῦ ταὐτὸν πτερόν.
 * Αἰόλ᾽ ἀνθρώπων κακά,
 * Mankind's troubles flicker about, and you'll nowhere see misery fly on the same wings.
 * lines 328–329 (tr. Christopher Collard)

βροτῶν.
 * Φύλακα πολυπόνων
 * The guardian of poor suffering mankind.
 * lines 382–383 (tr. Christopher Collard)

γένοιτο μύθου μῦθος ἂν θελκτήριος.
 * Καὶ γλῶσσα τοξεύσασα μὴ τὰ καίρια,
 * When a tongue at the wrong moment shoots off sharp-pointed words to rouse and hurt the spirit, speech may well soothe speech.
 * lines 446–447 (tr. Christopher Collard)

 * I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evil.
 * line 453; comparable to "where ignorance is bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise", Thomas Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, stanza 10

 * "Reverence for parents" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.
 * line 707; alternately reported with "Honour thy father and thy mother" in place of "Reverence for parents", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Prometheus Bound

 * Ἅπας δὲ τραχὺς ὅστις ἂν νέον κρατῇ.
 * New-made kings are cruel.
 * line 35 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

 * Ἐλεύθερος γὰρ οὔτις ἐστὶ πλὴν Διός.
 * For none is free but Zeus.
 * line 50 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)

 * Innumerable twinkling of the waves of the sea.
 * line 89

αἶσαν φέρειν ὡς ῥᾷστα, γιγνώσκονθ' ὅτι τὸ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἔστ' ἀδήριτον σθένος. Bear, as I can, I must, knowing the might Of strong Necessity is unconquerable.
 * Τὴν πεπρωμένην δὲ χρὴ
 * What's determined
 * lines 103–105 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

νόσημα, τοῖς φίλοισι μὴ πεποιθέναι. This poison, that he cannot trust a friend.'''
 * ἔνεστι γάρ πως τοῦτο τῇ τυραννίδι
 * For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.
 * lines 224–225
 * Variant translation: '''In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end

ἔχει παραινεῖν νουθετεῖν τε τοὺς κακῶς πράσσοντας. Foot, to admonish and remind those faring Ill.
 * Ἐλαφρὸν ὅστις πημάτων ἔξω πόδα
 * Easy, whoever out of trouble holds his
 * lines 263–265 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)

νέους. νέος γὰρ καὶ τύραννος ἐν θεοῖς. And, as the times, so let thy manners change, For by the law of change a new God rules.
 * Γίγνωσκε σαυτὸν καὶ μεθάρμοσαι τρόπους
 * Learn to know thy heart,
 * lines 309–310 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

πρὸς κέντρα κῶλον ἐκτενεῖς. Thou shalt not kick against the pricks.
 * Οὔκουν ἔμοιγε χρώμενος διδασκάλῳ
 * Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
 * lines 322–323 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

γλώσσῃ ματαίᾳ ζημία προστρίβεται. On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?
 * Ἢ οὐκ οἶσθ' ἀκριβῶς ὢν περισσόφρων ὅτι
 * Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
 * lines 328–329 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)

ἢ σαυτόν. ἔργῳ κοὐ λόγῳ τεκμαίρομαι. Than to thyself:—I judge by deeds not words.
 * Πολλῷ γ' ἀμείνων τοὺς πέλας φρενοῦν ἔφυς
 * Thou are a better counsellor to others
 * lines 335–336 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

θέλοιμ' ἂν ὡς πλείστοισι πημονὰς τυχεῖν. I do not therefore wish to multiply The griefs of others.
 * Ἐγὼ γὰρ οὐκ εἰ δυστυχῶ, τοῦδ' εἵνεκα
 * If I grieve,
 * lines 345–346 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

 * ὀργῆς νοσούσης εἰσὶν ἰατροὶ λόγοι
 * Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
 * line 378; compare: "Apt words have power to suage / The tumours of a troubl'd mind", John Milton, Samson Agonistes.

Should seem not wise at all.
 * Κέρδιστον εὖ φρονοῦντα μὴ φρονεῖν δοκεῖν.
 * Since it most profits that the truly wise
 * line 385 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

 * Μνήμην ἁπάντων, μουσομήτορ' ἐργάνην.
 * Memory, Muse-mother, doer of all things.
 * line 461 (tr. Henry David Thoreau)

Of reason, nor neglect thy wretched state: So my fond hope suggests thou shalt be free From these base chains, nor less in power than Jove. These things should end; crush'd with a thousand wrongs, A thousand woes, I shall escape these chains. Necessity is stronger far than art. Now to disclose that which requires the seal Of strictest secresy; by guarding which I shall escape the misery of these chains.'''
 * Chorus: Let not thy love to man o'erleap the bounds
 * Prometheus: Not thus — it is not in the Fates that thus
 * Chorus: Who then is ruler of necessity?
 * Prometheus: The triple Fates and unforgetting Furies.
 * Chorus: Must Jove then yield to their superior power?
 * Prometheus: He no way shall escape his destined fate.
 * Chorus: What, but eternal empire, is his fate?
 * Prometheus: Thou mayst not know this now: forbear to inquire.
 * Chorus: Is it of moment what thou keep'st thus close?
 * Prometheus: No more of this discourse; '''it is not time
 * lines 510–524, as translated by R. Potter (1860)

The hand of his Hephæstus.
 * βούλευμα μὲν τὸ Δῖον, Ἡφαίστου δὲ χείρ.
 * The will of Zeus,
 * line 619 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

ἐνταῦθ', ὅπου μέλλοι τις οἴσεσθαι δάκρυ πρὸς τῶν κλυόντων, ἀξίαν τριβὴν ἔχει. And mourn out grief, where it is possible To draw a tear from the audience, is a work That pays its own price well.
 * Ὡς τἀποκλαῦσαι κἀποδύρασθαι τύχας
 * Since to open out
 * lines 637–639 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Than thus to drag sick life."
 * κρεῖσσον γὰρ εἰσάπαξ θανεῖν ἢ τὰς ἁπάσας ἡμέρας πάσχειν κακῶς.
 * For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.
 * lines 750–751
 * Variant translation by John Stuart Blackie (1850): "Life and life's sorrows? Once to die is better

 * Τὸ κηδεῦσαι καθ' ἑαυτὸν ἀριστεύει μακρῷ.
 * True marriage is the union that mates Equal with equal.
 * line 890 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

ὁ μῦθός ἐστιν, ὡς θεῶν ὑπηρέτου. In th' utterance, and full-minded in the sense, As doth befit a servant of the gods!
 * Σεμνόστομός γε καὶ φρονήματος πλέως
 * A speech well-mouthed
 * lines 953–954 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

 * Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος.
 * Time waxing old can many a lesson teach.
 * line 981 (tr. E. H. Plumptre).
 * Variant translations:
 * Time brings all things to pass.
 * Time as he grows old teaches all things.

πῶλος βιάζῃ καὶ πρὸς ἡνίας μάχῃ. Who bites against the new bit in his teeth, And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein.
 * Δακὼν δὲ στόμιον ὡς νεοζυγὴς
 * Like a young horse
 * lines 1009–1010 (tr. Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

αὐτὴ καθ' αὑτὴν οὐδενὸς μεῖζον σθένει. Is in itself weaker than naught at all.
 * Αὐθαδία γὰρ τῷ φρονοῦντι μὴ καλῶς
 * For stubborness, if one be in the wrong,
 * lines 1012–1013 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

τὸ Δῖον, ἀλλὰ πᾶν ἔπος τελεῖ.
 * Ψευδηγορεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταται στόμα
 * God's mouth knows not how to speak falsehood, but he brings to pass every word.
 * lines 1032–1033

 * On me the tempest falls. It does not make me tremble. O holy Mother Earth, O air and sun, behold me. I am wronged.
 * line 1089

Seven Against Thebes (467 BC)
τἄξωθεν· ἔνδον δ᾽ οὖσα μὴ βλάβην τίθει. Be loud in council! for the things without, A man must care; let women keep within— Even then is mischief all too probable!
 * Μέλει γὰρ ἀνδρί, μὴ γυνὴ βουλευέτω,
 * Let not a woman's voice
 * lines 200–201 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

μήτηρ, γυνὴ σωτῆρος. Sure pledge of safety.
 * Πειθαρχία γάρ ἐστι τῆς εὐπραξίας
 * Obedience mother is of good success,
 * lines 224–225 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

πολλάκι δ᾽ ἐν κακοῖσι τὸν ἀμάχανον κἀκ χαλεπᾶς δύας ὕπερθ᾽ ὀμμάτων κρημναμενᾶν νεφελᾶν ὀρθοῖ. And oft, in direst strait, It lifteth from the lowest depths of ill Him who, with cloud-veiled eyes, was desperate.
 * Ἔστι· θεοῦ δ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἰσχὺς καθυπερτέρα·
 * True, but the strength of god is mightier still,
 * lines 226–229 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * Ἀψυχίᾳ γὰρ γλῶσσαν ἁρπάζει φόβος.
 * Through want of heart fear seizes on my tongue.
 * line 259 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

οὐδ᾽ ἑλκοποιὰ γίγνεται τὰ σήματα λόφοι δὲ κώδων τ᾽ οὐ δάκνουσ᾽ ἄνευ δορός. Shall e'er present a fear! such pointed threats Are powerless to wound; his plumes and bells, Without a spear, are snakes without a sting.
 * κόσμον μὲν ἀνδρὸς οὔτιν᾽ ἂν τρέσαιμ᾽ ἐγώ,
 * To me, no blazon on a foeman's shield
 * lines 397–399 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

 * Καὶ τῷδε κέρδει κέρδος ἄλλο τίκτεται.
 * Gain upon gain, and interest to boot!
 * line 437 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

But with a hand which sees the thing to do.
 * Ἀνὴρ ἄκομπος, χεὶρ δ᾽ ὁρᾷ τὸ δράσιμον.
 * No boaster he,
 * line 554 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * Oὐ γὰρ δοκεῖν ἄριστος, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι θέλει
 * His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.
 * line 592; compare: esse quam videri.

 * ἐν παντὶ πράγει δ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁμιλίας κακῆς κάκιον οὐδέν
 * In every enterprise is no greater evil than bad companionship
 * lines 599–600 (tr. David Grene)

Brings forth the fruits of Death.
 * Ἄτης ἄρουρα θάνατον ἐκκαρπίζεται.
 * The field of Sin
 * line 601 (tr. G. M. Cookson)

 * φιλεῖ δὲ σιγᾶν ἢ λέγειν τὰ καίρια.
 * He or silence keeps or speaks in season.
 * line 619 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * γέροντα τὸν νοῦν, σάρκα δ᾽ ἡβῶσαν φύει
 * He has the wisdom of an old man, but his body is at its prime
 * line 622 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

ἔστω· μόνον γὰρ κέρδος ἐν τεθνηκόσι· κακῶν δὲ κᾀσχρῶν οὔτιν᾽ εὐκλείαν ἐρεῖς. Without disgrace, sole profit to the dead; On base and evil deeds no glory waits.
 * Εἴπερ κακὸν φέροι τις, αἰσχύνης ἄτερ
 * If any one bear evil, let it be
 * lines 683–685 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

Agamemnon

And end this weary job. One long full year I've been lying here, on this rooftop, The palace of the sons of Atreus, Resting on my arms, just like a dog. I've come to know the night sky, every star, The powers we see glittering in the sky, Bringing winter and summer to us all, As the constellations rise and sink.
 * I pray the gods will give me some relief
 * opening lines

βέβηκεν.
 * βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ μέγας
 * A great ox stands on my tongue.
 * lines 36–37

μαθοῦσιν αὐδῶ κοὐ μαθοῦσι λήθομαι. To others, nought remember nor discern.
 * Ὡς ἑκὼν ἐγὼ
 * I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,
 * lines 38–39 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

οὔθ' ὑποκαίων οὔτ' ἐπιλείβων οὔτε δακρύων ἀπύρων ἱερῶν ὀργὰς ἀτενεῖς παραθέλξει. And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall— Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine Poured forth too late, the wrath divine Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.
 * Τελεῖται δ' ἐς τὸ πεπρωμένον·
 * But as he willed 'tis ordered all,
 * lines 68–71 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

σαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν. στάζει δ᾽ ἔν θ᾽ ὕπνῳ πρὸ καρδίας μνησιπήμων πόνος: καὶ παρ᾽ ἄ- κοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν. δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος σέλμα σεμνὸν ἡμένων. has established his fixed law— wisdom comes through suffering. Trouble, with its memories of pain, drips in our hearts as we try to sleep, so men against their will learn to practice moderation. Favours come to us from gods seated on their solemn thrones— such grace is harsh and violent. the Helmsman lays it down as law that we must suffer, suffer into truth. We cannot sleep, and drop by drop at the heart the pain of pain remembered comes again, and we resist, but ripeness comes as well. From the gods enthroned on the awesome rowing-bench there comes a violent love. The sole way where wisdom lies; Ordered one eternal plan: Man must suffer to be wise. Head-winds heavy with past ill Stray his course and cloud his heart. Sorrow takes the blind soul’s part — Man grows wise against his will. For powers who rule from thrones above By ruthlessness commend their love. that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, '''and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.''' falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'''
 * τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
 * Zeus, who guided mortals to be wise,
 * lines 176–183, as translated by Ian Johnston (Google Books)
 * Variant translations:
 * Zeus has led us on to know,
 * Robert Fagles, The Oresteia (1975)
 * Zeus, whose will has marked for man
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
 * God, whose law it is
 * Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way (1930), pp. 61 and 194 (Google Books)
 * Robert F. Kennedy quoted these lines in his speech announcing the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968. His version:
 * '''Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
 * Variant translations of πάθει μάθος:
 * By suffering comes wisdom.
 * The reward of suffering is experience.
 * Wisdom comes alone through suffering.
 * Then he put on The harness of Necessity.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
 * Least said is soonest mended.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

σιν μαθεῖν ἐπιῤῥέπει· τὸ μέλλον. For those to whom through pain At last comes wisdom's gain.
 * Δίκα δὲ τοῖς μὲν παθοῦ-
 * Justice turns the scale
 * lines 250–251 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
 * But Justice with her shining eyes Lights the smoke-begrimed and mean Dwelling; honours those who prize Honour; searches far to find All whose hearts and hands are clean; Passes with averted gaze Golden palaces which hide Evil armed in insolence; Power and riches close combined, Falsely stamped with all men’s praise, Win from her no reverence.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

ἕως γένοιτο μητρὸς εὐφρόνης πάρα. Bearing glad tidings from his mother Night!
 * Εὐάγγελος μέν, ὥσπερ ἡ παροιμία,
 * May Morning, as the proverb runs, appear
 * lines 264–265 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

διχοστατοῦντ' ἂν οὐ φίλως † προσεννέποις. And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.
 * Ὄξος τ' ἄλειφά τ' ἐγχέας ταὐτῷ κύτει
 * Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,
 * lines 322–323 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

 * She [Helen] brought to Ilium her dowry, destruction.
 * line 406

ταχύπορος· ἀλλὰ ταχύμορον γυναικογήρυτον ὄλλυται κλέος. The limit which a woman sets to trust Advances evermore; And with swift doom of death A rumour spread by woman perishes.
 * Πιθανὸς ἄγαν ὁ θῆλυς ὅρος ἐπινέμεται
 * Quickly, with rapid steps, too credulous,
 * line 485–487 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

 * Πάλαι τὸ σιγᾶν φάρμακον βλάβης ἔχω.
 * Sole cure of wrong is silence.
 * line 548 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

 * Dangerous is a people's voice charged with wrath.
 * line 456 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

 * I think the slain care little if they sleep or rise again.
 * trans. Gilbert Murray

 * ἀεὶ γὰρ ἥβη τοῖς γέρουσιν εὐμαθεῖν.
 * Old men are always young enough to learn.
 * line 584 (line 583 of Richmond Lattimore's translation)
 * Variant translation: Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.
 * Old and ready to learn Is always young.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

 * δίχα δ' ἄλλων μονόφρων εἰμί
 * I hold my own mind and think apart from other men.
 * line 757

μετὰ μὲν πλείονα τίκτει, σφετέρᾳ δ' εἰκότα γέννᾳ. Like to the evil stock, the evil seed.
 * Τὸ δυσσεβὲς γὰρ ἔργον
 * Prolific truly is the impious deed;
 * lines 758–760 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

μὲν παλαιὰ νεά- ζουσαν ἐν κακοῖς βροτῶν Ὕβριν τότ' ἢ τόθ', ὅτε τὸ κύριον μόλῃ. When strikes the hour ordained by Fate, Breedeth new Arrogance, which still Revels, wild wantoner in human ill.
 * Glances whose gentle fire Bestowed both wound and balm;
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
 * Φιλεῖ δὲ τίκτειν Ὕβρις
 * But ancient Arrogance, or soon or late,
 * lines 763–766 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

πᾶς τις ἑτοῖμος· δῆγμα δὲ λύπης οὐδὲν ἐφ' ἧπαρ προσικνεῖται· καὶ ξυγχαίρουσιν ὁμοιοπρεπεῖς, ἀγέλαστα πρόσωπα βιαζόμενοι. To the forlorn will all men pay, But of the grief their eyes display, Nought to the heart doth pierce its way. And, with the joyous, they beguile Their lips unto a feigned smile.
 * Τῷ δυσπραγοῦντί τ' ἐπιστενάχειν
 * The show of weeping and of ruth
 * lines 790–794 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

φίλον τὸν εὐτυχοῦντ' ἄνευ φθόνων σέβειν.
 * Παύροις γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι συγγενὲς τόδε,
 * It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
 * lines 832–833
 * There are few whose inborn love Warms without envy to a friend’s prosperity.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

ἄχθος διπλοίζει τῷ πεπαμένῳ νόσον· τοῖς τ' αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ πήμασιν βαρύνεται καὶ τὸν θυραῖον ὄλβον εἰσορῶν στένει. Tortures with twofold pang whom it infects; By his own griefs oppressed, the envious man Groans also to behold another's joy.
 * Now, dearest husband, come, step from your chariot. But do not set to earth, my lord, the conquering foot That trod down Troy. Servants, do as you have been bidden; Make haste, carpet his way with crimson tapestries, Spread silk before your master’s feet; Justice herself Shall lead him to a home he never hoped to see.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books) Thought to be the earliest known reference to "red carpet"
 * Δύσφρων γὰρ ἰὸς καρδίαν προσήμενος
 * The jealous poison, lodged within the heart,
 * lines 834–837

 * God’s best gift Is a mind free from folly
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

βίον τελευτήσαντ' ἐν εὐεστοῖ φίλῃ.
 * Ὀλβίσαι δὲ χρὴ
 * Only when man's life comes to its end in prosperity can one call that man happy.
 * lines 928–929. Variant translations:
 * Hold him alone truly fortunate who has ended his life in happy well-being.
 * Call no man happy till he is dead.
 * Also expressed by Sophocles at the end of "Oedipus The King".

 * Ὁ δ' ἀφθόνητός γ' οὐκ ἐπίζηλος πέλει.
 * Life envy-free is life unenviable.
 * line 939 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
 * Greatness wins hate. Unenvied is unenviable.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

θεὸς πρόσωθεν εὐμενῶς προσδέρκεται. Looks graciously on him whom triumph's hour Has made not pitiless.
 * Τὸν κρατοῦντα μαλθακῶς
 * God on high
 * lines 951–952 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

 * Ἑκὼν γὰρ οὐδεὶς δουλίῳ χρῆται ζυγῷ.
 * None of their own will choose a bond-slave's life.
 * line 953 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)
 * Prophets find bad news useful. Why, the primary aim Of all their wordy wisdom is to make men gape.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
 * CHORUS: Courage and destiny in you Are proudly matched. CASSANDRA: The happy never hear such praise. CHORUS: Yet a brave death lends brightness to mortality.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

σκιᾷ τις ἂν πρέψειεν· εἰ δὲ δυστυχοῖ, βολαῖς ὑγρώσσων σπόγγος ὤλεσεν γραφήν. A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall, One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away.
 * Ἰὼ βρότεια πράγματ'· εὐτυχοῦντα μὲν
 * Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,
 * lines 1327–1329 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)
 * Alas for human destiny! Man’s happiest hours Are pictures drawn in shadow. Then ill fortune comes, And with two strokes the wet sponge wipes the drawing out. And grief itself’s hardly more pitiable than joy.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

πᾶσι βροτοῖσιν. With bliss is never satiate.
 * Of fortune no man tastes his fill. While pointing envy notes his store, And tongues extol his happiness, Man surfeited will hunger still. For who grows weary of success, Or turns good fortune from his door Bidding her trouble him no more?
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
 * Τὸ μὲν εὖ πράσσειν ἀκόρεστον ἔφυ
 * Too true it is! our mortal state
 * lines 1331–1332 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

 * Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.
 * line 1343

 * Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.
 * line 1364
 * Variant translation: Death is softer by far than tyranny.

τὸ γὰρ τοπάζειν τοῦ σάφ' εἰδέναι δίχα. To guess is one thing, and to know another.
 * Σάφ' εἰδότας χρὴ τῶνδε θυμοῦσθαι πέρι·
 * When we know clearly, then should we discuss:
 * lines 1368–1369 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

spitting great gobs of blood all over me, drenching me in showers of his dark blood. And I rejoiced—just as the fecund earth rejoices when the heavens send spring rains
 * Clytemnestra: He collapsed, snorting his life away,
 * lines 1388–1392 (tr. Ian Johnston)

Late though it be, the lesson to be wise.
 * Γνώσῃ διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν.
 * Thou shalt learn,
 * line 1425 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

τὸν ὕστατον μέλψασα θανάσιμον γόον κεῖται † φιλήτως τοῦδ'. Has chanted out her last and dying song, Lies, loved by him.
 * Ἡ δέ τοι κύκνου δίκην
 * And she who, like a swan,
 * lines 1444–1446 (tr. E. H. Plumptre)

 * Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?
 * line 1485

 * Πρὸς κέντρα μὴ λάκτιζε.
 * Do not kick against the pricks.
 * line 1624

 * I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
 * line 1668
 * Old as you are, you shall be taught some wisdom yet.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

 * Kόμπασον θαρσῶν, ἀλέκτωρ ὥστε θηλείας πέλας.
 * Be boastful and be bold, like cock beside his partner.
 * line 1671 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

The Libation Bearers

 * Time was, when one creed ruled the people’s mind: Reverence for royal power Unquestioned, firm as love could bind. Now reverence has resigned Her faith; fear has his hour. Success is now men’s god, men’s more than god.
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
 * Good fortune is a god among men, and more than a god.
 * line 59
 * Variant translation: Success is man's god.

 * Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
 * line 103

 * For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer.
 * line 312

θανόντι. The dead from wholly dying.
 * Παῖδες γὰρ ἀνδρὶ κληδόνες σωτήριοι
 * Children are memory's voices, and preserve
 * lines 505–506 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

κνωδάλων τε καὶ βροτῶν. 'Mong brutes or men the feebler sex befools, Conjugial bands o'errules.
 * θηλυκρατὴς ἀπέρωτος ἔρως παρανικᾷ
 * For love unlovely, when its evil spell
 * lines 600–601 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * What is pleasanter than the tie of host and guest?
 * line 702

Eumenides
ἔνερθε χθονός, δελτογράφῳ δὲ πάντ᾽ ἐπωπᾷ φρενί. Exactest auditor of human kind, Graved on the tablet of his mind Doth every trespass read.
 * Μέγας γὰρ Ἅιδης ἐστὶν εὔθυνος βροτῶν
 * For Hades, ruler of the nether sphere,
 * lines 273–275 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

Must somewhere reign enthroned, And watch men’s ways, and teach them, Through self-inflicted sorrow, That sin is not condoned. What man, no longer nursing Fear at his heart – what city, Once fear is cast away, Will bow the knee to Justice As in an earlier day?
 * For fear, enforcing goodness,
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

Nor slavery beneath a tyrant’s rod; Where liberty and rule are balanced well Success will follow as the gift of God
 * Seek neither licence, where no laws compel,
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

Justice' high altar; let no sight of gain Tempt you to spurn with godless insolence This sanctity. Cause and effect remain; From sin flows sorrow
 * This above all I bid you: reverence
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

πολλοὺς καθαρμούς, καὶ λέγειν ὅπου δίκη σιγᾶν θ᾽ ὁμοίως. Divers lustrations; when to speak I know, When to be silent.
 * Ἐγὼ διδαχθεὶς ἐν κακοῖς ἐπίσταμαι
 * To me, long disciplined in woe, are known
 * lines 276–278 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * Χρόνος καθαιρεῖ πάντα γηράσκων ὁμοῦ.
 * Time, waxing old, doth all things purify.
 * line 286 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * καὶ ζῶν με δαίσεις οὐδὲ πρὸς βωμῷ σφαγείς
 * Chorus of Furies: Living, you will be my feast, not slain at an altar
 * line 305 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

 * Chorus of Furies: We claim to be just and upright. No wrath from us will come stealthily to the one who holds out clean hands, and he will go through life unharmed; but whoever sins, as this man has, and hides his blood-stained hands, as avengers of bloodshed we appear against him to the end, presenting ourselves as upright witnesses for the dead.
 * lines 312–320 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

 * Κλύειν δίκαιος μᾶλλον ἢ πρᾶξαι θέλεις.
 * Repute of justice, not just act, thou wishest.
 * line 430 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

 * Ὅρκοις τὰ μὴ δίκαια μὴ νικᾶν λέγω.
 * I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.
 * line 432 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

μήτε δεσποτούμενον αἰνέσῃς. παντὶ μέσῳ τὸ κράτος θεὸς ὤπασεν. Nor that which bows unto a tyrant's sway. Know that the middle way Is dearest unto God, and they, thereon who wend, They shall achieve the end.
 * Μήτ᾽ ἀνάρχετον βίον
 * Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,
 * lines 526–530 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

Which will eschew alike licence and slavery; And from your polity do not wholly banish fear. For what man living, freed from fear, will still be just? Hold fast such upright fear of the law’s sanctity
 * Guard well and reverence that form of government
 * Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)

ας φρενῶν ὁ πάμφιλος καὶ πολύευκτος ὄλβος. Beloved of all, true bliss which mortals seek.
 * Ἐκ δ᾽ ὑγιεί-
 * While from inward health doth flow,
 * lines 535–537 (tr. Anna Swanwick)

οὐκ ἄνολβος ἔσται· πανώλεθρος δ᾽ οὔποτ᾽ ἂν γένοιτο.
 * ἑκὼν δ᾽ ἀνάγκας ἄτερ δίκαιος ὢν
 * Whoever is just willingly and without compulsion will not lack happiness; he will never be utterly destroyed.
 * lines 550–552 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

ἅπαξ θανόντος, οὔτις ἔστ᾽ ἀνάστασις.
 * ἀνδρὸς δ᾽ ἐπειδὰν αἷμ᾽ ἀνασπάσῃ κόνις
 * But when the dust has drawn up the blood of a man, once he is dead, there is no return to life.
 * lines 647–648 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth)

βαλοῦσά τ᾽ οἶκον ψῆφος ὤρθωσεν μία. Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep, One, cast aright, may stablish house and home.
 * Γνώμης δ᾽ ἀπούσης πῆμα γίγνεται μέγα,
 * The default
 * lines 750–751 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

Misattributed

 * Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
 * Anaxagoras, frg. B 21a

 * Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
 * This is usually attributed to Emiliano Zapata, but sometimes to Aeschylus, who is credited with expressing similar sentiments in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life".

 * In war, truth is the first casualty.
 * This is often attributed to U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson, but does not appear anywhere in his speeches. Arthur Ponsonby quoted: "When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty", but the first recorded use seems to be by Philip Snowden in his introduction to Truth and the War, by E. D. Morel. London, July 1916: "'Truth,' it has been said, 'is the first casualty of war.'" Samuel Johnson expressed a similar idea: "Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."

Quotes about Aeschylus

 * My favorite poet was Aeschylus.
 * Robert F. Kennedy, "On the Death of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." (4 April 1968), quoted in "Robert Kennedy: Delivering News of King's Death", National Public Radio (4 April 2008)

 * Aeschylus is not impersonal but transpersonal, a believer in fate and moral responsibility at the same time.
 * Rollo May, Love and Will (1969), p. 136

 * He raised everything he touched to grandeur. The characters in his hands became heroic; the conflicts became tense and fraught with eternal issues.
 * Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus: The Creator of Tragedy (1940), p. 205

imperfect. Now and then its constituents, epic and lyric, are not properly fused. He is often abrupt, immoderate, hard. To succeed him with a more artful tragedy was easy; in his almost superhuman greatness he is likely to remain unexcelled. . ..
 * The tragic style of Aeschylus is still
 * August Wilhelm Schlegel, as quoted in The Art of Aeschylus (1982) by Thomas G. Rosenmeyer

 * I regard the Oresteia as probably on the whole the greatest spiritual work of man.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, letter to Walter Headlam (2 October 1900), in The Swinburne Letters, ed. Cecil Y. Lang, Vol. 6 (Yale University Press, 1962), p. 147

 * Æschylus is above all things the poet of righteousness. "But in any wise, I say unto thee, revere thou the altar of righteousness": this is the crowning admonition of his doctrine, as its crowning prospect is the reconciliation or atonement of the principle of retribution with the principle of redemption, of the powers of the mystery of darkness with the coeternal forces of the spirit of wisdom, of the lord of inspiration and of light.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Age of Shakespeare (1908)

title: Aeschylus


text:
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text:
Manfred Mann

Manfred Mann (real name Manfred Sepse Lubowitz) was born on 21 October 1940 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a professional keyboard player, best known as the founder member of the bands Manfred Mann and Manfred Mann's Earth Band.

Quotes

 * Pop music is probably the only art form that is totally dependent for its success on the general public. The more people buy a record, the more successful it is - not only commercially but artistically.
 * Quoted in The Sociology of Rock by Simon Frith, 1978, ISBN 0094602204.

title: Manfred Mann


text:
Sociology

Sociology is the scientific study of human society and its origins, development, organizations, and institutions.

 * CONTENT : A - F, G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes

 * Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

A - F

 * Good sociology is sociological work that produces meaningful descriptions of organizations and events, valid explanations of how they come about and persist, and realistic proposals for their improvement or removal.
 * Howard S. Becker (1972) "'Radical politics and sociological research"

 * The social sciences are granted eternal youth because findings must be revisited.
 * paraphrasing Max Weber in: The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States. 2008. p. 12. ISBN 1317343786.

 * To have given clear and unified answers in familiar empirical terms to those theoretical questions which most occupied men's minds at the time, and to have deduced from them clear practical directives without creating obviously artificial links between the two, was the principle achievement of Marx's theory. The sociological treatment of historical and moral problems, which Comte and after him, Spencer and Taine, had discussed and mapped, became a precise and concrete study only when the attack of militant Marxism made its conclusions a burning issue, and so made the search for evidence more zealous and the attention to method more intense.
 * Isaiah Berlin Karl Marx: His Life and Environment. 3rd edition (1967). Time Inc Book Division, New York. pp. 13-14

 * I often say that sociology is a martial art, a means of self-defense. Basically, you use it to defend yourself, without having the right to use it for unfair attacks.
 * Pierre Bourdieu (2000) La Sociologie est un sport de combat; Cited in: John Horne, Wolfram Manzenreiter (2004) Football Goes East. p. XII. ISBN 1134365586.

 * Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
 * Ray Bradbury (1953) Fahrenheit 451 p. 61

 * Within sociology there have been several system theories, differing from one another in the extent to which, for example, human agency, creativity, and entrepreneurship are assumed to play a role in system formation and reformation; conflict and struggle are taken into account; power and stratification are part and parcel of the theory; structural change and transformation – and more generally, historically developments – are taken into account and explained. What the various system theories have in common is a systematic concern with complex and varied interconnections and interdependencies of social life. Complexity has been a central concept for many working in the systems perspective. The tradition is characterized to a great extent by a burning ambition and hope to provide a unifying language and conceptual framework for all the social sciences.
 * Tom R. Burns (2006) "System Theories" in: George Ritzer ed. The Encyclopedia of Sociology, Blackwell Publishing.

 * Comte gave a powerful impetus to the development of sociology, an impetus which bore fruit in the later decades of the nineteenth century. To say this is certainly not to claim that French sociologists such as Durkheim were devoted disciples of the high priest of positivism. But by insisting on the irreducibility of each of his basic sciences to the particular science of sciences which it presupposed in the hierarchy and by emphasizing the nature of sociology as the scientific study of social phenomena Comte put sociology on the map. To be sure, [its] beginnings can be traced back well beyond Montesquieu, for example, and to Condorcet, not to speak of Saint-Simon, Comte's immediate predecessor. But Comte's clear recognition of sociology as a particular science, with a character of its own, justified Durkheim in regarding him as the father or founder of this science, in spite of the fact that Durkheim did not accept the idea of the three states and criticized Comte's approach to sociology.
 * Frederick Copleston A History of Philosophy: IX Modern Philosophy (1994). Image Books, New York. p. 140. ISBN 0385129106.

G - L

 * The year was 1968, and the fact that thirty-eight-year-old Levada called himself a sociologist, and his subject sociology, was almost revolutionary. Sociology was not exactly banned in the Soviet Union, but the name of the discipline had been reduced to something like a curse word. Lenin himself had inaugurated it as a Soviet insult. The problem with sociology was much the same as with psychoanalysis: the field of study refused to be a “science” that could be used to create a new society of new men. A year before the Philosophers’ Ship sailed, one of Lenin’s closest allies, Nikolai Bukharin, published The Theory of Historical Materialism, an attempt at a sort of Marxist textbook of everything, written in a folksy language intended for the proletariat. Three things that Bukharin did in this textbook proved deadly for Soviet sociology: he included new ideas that he believed advanced Marxist theory, he subtitled it A Popular Textbook of Marxist Sociology, and he proclaimed the supreme importance of sociology among the social sciences because it “examines not some one aspect of public life but all of public life in all its complexity.” Lenin hated the book, and the word “sociology” took the brunt of his rage. He underlined it throughout the book and supplied a small variety of comments in the margins: “Haha!” “Eclectic!” “Help!” and the like. In another eight years, when Bukharin was deposed in a Party power struggle, Stalin recalled Lenin’s skepticism by describing Bukharin’s work as possessed of “the hypertrophied pretentiousness of a half-baked theoretician.” Bukharin was eventually executed. Much earlier, sociology had had to go into hiding.
 * Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, (2017)

 * The critique of Parsons exploded sociological theory into a thousand glittering but laughably parochial fragments of nano-theories. The contemporary culture of sociology is to treat social theory as set of personal expressions of literati and pseudo-philosophers. Surveying contemporary sociological theory is like going to the art museum. There we see lots of brilliant works, each the product of an artist's imagination. Certainly there is no attempt by artists to form a unified aesthetic vision. Nor should there be. But science is not art. A science becomes mature when the efforts of all researchers are coordinated by an underlying core model. This truth is denied in contemporary sociological culture.
 * Herbert Gintis, Review of An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (December 6, 2009)

 * Success in the sociologists' aim might lead, in T. S. Eliot's phrase, to "systems so perfect that no one would need to be good." This view forgets that men long ago committed themselves to the endeavor to control their own collective behavior, not only in the ways sanctioned by the churches but in others, by making it to men's interest to do good. And they have increasingly based the endeavor on an understanding of natural laws of human behavior, those of economics, for example. So that the question is not: Shall this kind of control be undertaken? but: Where shall it stop? A sociologist might also argue that his religious critics have more faith in him than in their own doctrine, the doctrine that man is infinitely tough and resourceful and is not easily cheated of his freedom to sin. What God has given no man can take away, certainly no sociologist. More seriously, he might argue that the social sciences are not in train to eliminate morality but to make greater demands of it. A sociology that shows us unsuspected or not hitherto understood ways in which men are bound up with one another invites more refined answers to the question: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
 * George C. Homans (1956), "Giving a dog a bad name." in: The Listener, Vol. 56. p. 233; Reprinted in: George C. Homans (1962), Sentiments & activities; essays in social science, p. 117-8

 * The Black student movement ... raised the questions: Why should we study classical sociological theory and be taught nothing about the history of Black sociological thought, including the works of W. E. B. DuBois, Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Oliver C. Cox and others? Why should we be taught courses on deviance, social disorganization and social problems which take as given that Blacks should be defined as the perpetrators and creators of social pathology and not as its victims?
 * Joyce Ladner, Introduction to The Death of White Sociology (1973), p. xxv

 * The social scientist is in a difficult, if not impossible position. On the one hand there is the temptation to see all of society as one's autobiography writ large, surely not the path to general truth. On the other, there is the attempt to be general and objective by pretending that one knows nothing about the experience of being human, forcing the investigator to pretend that people usually know and tell the truth about important issues, when we all know from our lives how impossible that is. How, then, can there be a "social science"? The answer, surely, is to be less ambitious and stop trying to make sociology into a natural science although it is, indeed, the study of natural objects. There are some things in the world that we will never know and many that we will never know exactly. Each domain of phenomena has its characteristic grain of knowability. Biology is not physics, because organisms are such complex physical objects, and sociology is not biology because human societies are made by self-conscious organisms. By pretending to a kind of knowledge that it cannot achieve, social science can only engender the scorn of natural scientists and the cynicism of the humanists.
 * Richard Lewontin Sex, Lies, and Social Science (1995)

M - R

 * Myth does not set out to give lessons in natural science any more than in morals or sociology.
 * François-Bernard Mâche (1983, 1992). Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion (Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion, trans. Susan Delaney). Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 3718653214

 * Sociology is the science which has the most methods and the least results.
 * Henri Poincaré (1908) Science and Method Part I. Ch. 1 : The Selection of Facts, p. 19

 * Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant ra~onale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables.
 * Anatol Rapoport, "Outline of a probabilistic approach to animal sociology: I." The Bulletin of mathematical biophysics 11.3 (1949): p 183

 * Anyone who has studied psychology, sociology, anthropology, or any of the other wacko-and-wog disciplines knows the three great rules of the social sciences: Folks do lots of things. We don't know why. Test on Friday.
 * P.J. O'Rourke (2007) Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut. p. 207

 * The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors— psychology, sociology, women's studies— to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.
 * P.J. O'Rourke (2007) Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle. p. xxi

S - Z

 * I understand the task of sociology to be description and determination of the historical-psychological origin of those forms in which interactions take place between human beings. The totality of these interactions, springing from the most diverse impulses, directed toward the most diverse objects, and aiming at the most diverse ends, constitutes "society."
 * Georg Simmel, Superiority and Subordination as Subject-matter of Sociology (1896), p. 167

title: Sociology