Bacchae Quotes

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
― Euripides, Bacchae

“Cleverness is not wisdom.”
― Euripides, Bacchae

“Do not mistake the rule of force
for true power. Men are not shaped by force.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Young man,
two are the forces most precious to mankind.
The first is Demeter, the Goddess.
She is the Earth -- or any name you wish to call her --
and she sustains humanity with solid food.
Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin,
bringing the counterpart to bread: wine
and the blessings of life's flowing juices.
His blood, the blood of the grape,
lightens the burden of our mortal misery.
Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out
to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Prepare yourselves
for the roaring voice of the God of Joy!”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Knowledge is not wisdom: cleverness is not, not without awareness of our death, not without recalling just how brief our flare is. He who overreaches will, in his overreaching, lose what he possesses, betray what he has now. That which is beyond us, which is greater than the human, the unattainably great, is for the mad, or for those who listen to the mad, and then believe them.”
― Euripides, Bacchae

“Remember this! No amount of Bacchic reveling
can corrupt an honest woman.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“He is life's liberating force.
He is release of limbs and communion through dance.
He is laughter, and music in flutes.
He is repose from all cares -- he is sleep!
When his blood bursts from the grape
and flows across tables laid in his honor
to fuse with our blood,
he gently, gradually, wraps us in shadows
of ivy-cool sleep.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“The God knows when to smile.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Those who look for filth, can find it at the height of noon.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“Come, God --
Bromius, Bacchus, Dionysus --
burst into life, burst
into being, be a mighty bull,
a hundred-headed snake,
a fire-breathing lion.
Burst into smiling life, oh Bacchus!”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“If you take wine away, love will die, and
every other source of human joy will follow.”
― Euripides - Translated by Paul Woodruff, Bacchae

“O Dionysus, Son of God,
do you see our sufferings?
Do you see your faithful
in helpless agony before the oppressor?
O Lord, come down from Olympus,
shake your golden thyrsus
and stifle the murderer's insolent fury.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“This town must learn,
even against its will, how much it costs
to scorn a God's mysteries and to be purged.
So shall I vindicate my virgin mother
and reveal myself to mortals as a God,
the son of God.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“O Dionysus, we feel you near,
stirring like molten lava
under the ravaged earth,
flowing from the wounds of your trees
in tears of sap,
screaming with the rage
of your hunted beasts.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae

“He who believes needs no explanation.”
― Euripides, Bacchae

“My hair is holy. I grow it long for the God.”
― Euripides, The Bacchae