Socrate. Tiens-tu quelque chose ? Strepsiade. Non, par Zeus, non certes. Socrate. Rien du tout ? Strepsiade. Rien... que ma verge dans ma main droite. - Aristophanes

Strep. Socrates! My little Socrates!
Socrates. Why callest thou me, thou creature of a day?
Strep. First tell me, I beseech you, what are you doing.
Soc. I am walking in the air, and speculating about the
sun.
Strep. And so you look down upon the gods from your
basket, and not from the earth?
Soc. For I should not have rightly discovered things
celestial if I had not suspended the intellect, and
mixed the thought in a subtle form with its kindred air.
But if, being on the ground, I speculated from below on
things above, I should never have discovered them. For
the earth forcibly attracts to itself the meditative
moisture. Water-cresses also suffer the very same thing.
Strep. What do you say? Does meditation attract the
moisture to the water-cresses? Come then, my little
Socrates, descend to me, that you may teach me those
things, for the sake of which I have come.

I must think of something foolproof for a fool.

[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. (tr. Lindsay 1925, Perseus)