Homer Quotes

245 Sourced Quotes

It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country.

Homer
There she met sleep, the brother of death.

Homer
Achilles' cursed anger sing, O goddess, that son of Peleus, which started a myriad sufferings for the Achaeans.

Homer
There is nothing more shameless than the accursed belly; it thrusts itself upon a man's mind in spite of his afflictions.

Homer
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.

Homer
May the gods grant you all things which your heart desires, and may they give you a husband and a home and gracious concord, for there is nothing greater and better than this—when a husband and wife keep a household in oneness of mind, a great woe to their enemies and joy to their friends, and win high renown.

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.

Homer
The force of keen reproaches let him feel,
but sheath, obedient, thy revenging steel.

Homer
Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.

Homer
The gods, likening themselves to all kinds of strangers, go in various disguises from city to city, observing the wrongdoing and the righteousness of men.

Homer
The Olympian is a difficult foe to oppose.

Homer
Remembering this, he wept bitterly, lying now on his side, now on his back, now on his face.

Homer
But night is already at hand; it is well to yield to the night.

Homer
I wish that strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals, and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind, that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey.

Homer
By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, and what to those we give, to Jove is lent.

Homer
Endure, my heart: you once endured something even more dreadful.

Homer
They strove to pile Ossa on Olympus, and on Ossa Pelion with its leafy forests, that they might scale the heavens.

Homer
Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke
And furious thus, and interrupting, spoke.

Homer
It never was our guise to slight the poor, or aught humane despise.

Homer
No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born.

Homer
So it is that the gods do not give all men gifts of grace—neither good looks nor intelligence nor eloquence.

Homer
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.

Homer
By the ships there lies a dead man, unwept, unburied: Patroclus.

Homer
They tug, they sweat, but neither gain, nor yield
One foot, one inch of the contended field.

Homer
Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep, even so I will endure… For already have I suffered full much, and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war. Let this be added to the tale of those.

Homer
It is not possible to fight beyond your strength, even if you strive.

Homer
Thus at full ease, in heaps of riches rolled,
What grieves the monarch?

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

Homer
Nay if even in the house of Hades the dead forget their dead, yet will I even there be mindful of my dear comrade.

Homer
Yet while my Hector still survives, I see My father, mother, brethren, all in thee.

Homer