Even if you persuade me, you won’t persuade me.
Chorus [of Birds]: Full of wiles, full of guile, at all times, in all ways, are the children of Men.
Strepsiades: But come, by the Earth, is not Zeus, the Olympian, a god?
Socrates: What Zeus? Do not trifle. There is no Zeus.
Strepsiades: Vortex reigns, having expelled Zeus.
Leader of the Chorus: Let's see. What shall our city be called? […]
Euelpides: Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions in which we dwell — in short, some well-known name.
Pisthetaerus: Do you like Nephelococcygia?
Poet: Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic.” Do you get what I mean?
Pisthetaerus: I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (To the acolyte.) take off yours; we must help the poet.
Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; […] I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. […]
Blepyrus: But who will till the soil?
Praxagora: The slaves.
Chorus: [We] must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator ready to sting us.
Strepsiades: ‘Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Zeus and is King now.
Old age is second childhood.
Dicaepolis: Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true.
Lamachus: Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much!
Bdelycleon: It is so that you may know only those who nourish you
Unjust Cause: This art is worth more than ten thousand staters, that one should choose the worse cause, and nevertheless be victorious.
[Choir of] Men: There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.
[Choir of] Women: And yet you are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with me, when for your faithful ally you might win me easily.
Chorus [leader]: Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, / Protracted with sorrow from day to day, / Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, / Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay!
[Choir of] Women: It should not prejudice my voice that I'm not born a man, if I say something advantageous to the present situation. For I'm taxed too, and as a toll provide men for the nation.
Man is naturally deceitful ever, in every way!
Demosthenes: A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.
