Quotes from Homer

Attach a golden chain from heaven, and all of you take hold of it, you gods and goddesses, yet would you not be able to drag Zeus the most high from heaven to earth.

A dream, too, is from Zeus.

Always to be bravest and to be preeminent above others.

But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions.

To have a great man for an intimate friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it those who have, fear it.

Nothing feebler does earth nurture than man, Of all things breathing and moving.

Wide-sounding Zeus takes away half a man's worth on the day when slavery comes upon him.

I could not tell nor name the multitude, not even if I had ten tongues, ten mouths, not if I had a voice unwearying and a heart of bronze were in me.

I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown.

Olympus, where they say there is an abode of the gods, ever unchanging: it is neither shaken by winds nor ever wet with rain, nor does snow come near it, but clear weather spreads cloudless about it, and a white radiance stretches above it.

If you are very valiant, it is a god, I think, who gave you this gift.

Therefore the fame of her excellence will never perish, and the immortals will fashion among earthly men a gracious song in honor of faithful Penelope.

Then dark death seized Argus, as soon as he had seen Odysseus in the twentieth year.

Far away in the mountains a shepherd hears their [the warriors'] thundering.

Like cicadas, which sit upon a tree in the forest and pour out their piping voices, so the leaders of the Trojans were sitting on the tower.

Great-hearted Stentor with brazen voice, who could shout as loud as fifty other men.

And they die an equal death — the idler and the man of mighty deeds.

It is equally wrong to speed a guest who does not want to go, and to keep one back who is eager. You ought to make welcome the present guest, and send forth the one who wishes to go.

I should rather labor as another's serf, in the home of a man without fortune, one whose livelihood was meager, than rule over all the departed dead.

The immortals will send you to the Elysian plain at the ends of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthys is. There life is supremely easy for men. No snow is there, nor ever heavy winter storm, nor rain, and Ocean is ever sending gusts of the clear-blowing west wind to bring coolness to men.

Tell me, muse, of the man of many resources who wandered far and wide after he sacked the holy citadel of Troy, and he saw the cities and learned the thoughts of many men, and on the sea he suffered in his heart many woes.

Zeus does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment.

He [Axylus] was a wealthy man, and kindly to his fellow men; for dwelling in a house by the side of the road, he used to entertain all comers.

It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair. But when dogs shame the gray head and gray chin and nakedness of an old man killed, it is the most piteous thing that happens among wretched mortals.