Quotes from Homer

Ah my friend, if you and I could escape this fray and live forever, never a trace of age, immortal, I would never fight on the front lines again or command you to the field where men win fame.

Do not beg me by knees or by parents you dog! I only wish I were savagely wrathful enough to hack up your corpse and eat it raw

Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven; think on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable

Think not to match yourself against the gods, for men that walk the earth cannot hold their own with the immortals.

Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back! Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down. Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one - and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess, with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle!

It behooves a father to be blameless if he expects his child to be.

Have patience, heart.

Like a girl, a baby running after her mother, begging to be picked up, and she tugs on her skirts, holding her back as she tries to hurry off—all tears, fawning up at her, till she takes her in her arms… That's how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.

Reproach is infinite, and knows no end So voluble a weapon is the tongue; Wounded, we wound; and neither side can fail For every man has equal strength to rail.

if fifty bands of men surrounded us/ and every sword sang for your blood,/ you could make off still with their cows and sheep.

Strife and Confusion joined the fight, along with cruel Death, who seized one wounded man while still alive and then another man without a wound, while pulling the feet of one more corpse out from the fight. The clothes Death wore around her shoulders were dyed red with human blood.

I say no wealth is worth my life.

he'll never lie - the man is far too wise.

And what if one of the gods does wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and painful experiences in war and on the stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more.

And his good wife will tear her cheeks in grief, his sons are orphans and he, soaking the soil red with his own blood, he rots away himself—more birds than women flocking round his body!

A guest never forgets the host who has treated him kindly.

You've injured me, Farshooter, most deadly of the gods; And I'd punish you, if I had the power.

Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one—so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claim—the greater man.

It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know least, and talk most.

Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them.

Of the many things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more unintelligible than the human heart.

Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above all the others. Never disgrace the generation of your fathers. They were the bravest champions...

One omen is best; Defending the fatherland

But now, as it is, sorrows, unending sorrows must surge within your heart as well—for your own son's death. Never again will you embrace him stiding home. My spirit rebels—I've lost the will to live, to take my stand in the world of men—