Life & Wisdom Quote by Aristophanes

A reminder about fairness, yes, but coming from Aristophanes it also lands as a sly warning about how easily “fairness” can be staged. In Athenian democracy, everyone talked up reasoned debate: citizens judging lawsuits, assemblies voting on policy, juries deciding guilt. The ideal listener hears both sides. Aristophanes, the comedian who made politics and public speech his favorite target, knew how often that ideal got hijacked by performance.

The line’s intent is practical advice with a comic edge: suspend judgment, don’t let the first speaker hypnotize you. Its subtext is darker. “Both have to say” assumes symmetry - two sides, two stories, one balanced truth. Aristophanes lived in a culture where persuasive talk could be a weapon, where sophists taught technique over substance, and where charisma could outrun competence. Hearing “both” isn’t a guarantee of wisdom; it’s a minimum defense against manipulation.

That’s why the sentence works: it sounds like civic virtue while quietly implying civic vulnerability. It flatters the audience as rational arbiters while reminding them how easily they become a crowd. Aristophanes’ plays repeatedly show decision-making as theater: loud voices, confident lies, fear dressed up as patriotism. This maxim doesn’t just advocate due process; it exposes how the polis depends on citizens doing the hard, unglamorous labor of patience.

Read now, it doubles as media advice. The demand to “hear both sides” can be ethical, or it can be a trick to launder bad arguments through the aesthetics of balance. Aristophanes would recognize the difference instantly.