Life & Wisdom Quote by Euripides

Fortune, in Euripides hands, is less a goddess with a whim than a mirror held up to the mind. "Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment" flips the usual alibi people offer for success. Instead of treating luck as the deciding factor, it recasts luck as something you can recruit. The verb "helps" is doing the heavy lifting: fortune is secondary, an assistant to prudence, not the author of outcomes. That’s a bracingly unsentimental idea for a culture that also prayed to Tyche.

The intent feels corrective, almost prosecutorial. Euripides was famous for puncturing heroic posturing and exposing how often catastrophe is self-inflicted. In his tragedies, the gods may loom, but human choices - rash vows, misread signals, pride disguised as certainty - keep dragging the plot toward the cliff. This line functions as an antidote to fatalism: if you keep losing, maybe the universe isn’t persecuting you; maybe you’re courting disaster.

The subtext is also political. Fifth-century Athens lived through war, plague, and the volatility of democracy; public life rewarded quick talk and punished slow caution. Euripides, often cast as the skeptic among tragedians, suggests that what people call "luck" is frequently just timing plus preparation: the ability to see the exit before the stampede, to recognize a bad bargain before it becomes destiny.

Even the adverb "truly" sounds like a side-eye at superstition. Not all fortune is random; much of it is earned by the rare, unglamorous talent of judging well.