Homer Quotes

245 Sourced Quotes

And for yourself, may the gods grant you your heart's desire, a husband and a home, and the blessing of a harmonious life. For nothing is greater or finer than this, when a man and woman live together with one hear and mind, bringing joy to their friends and grief to their foes.

Homer
If you are one of earth's inhabitants, how blest your father, and your gentle mother, blest all your kin. I know what happiness must send the warm tears to their eyes, each time they see their wondrous child go to the dancing! But one man's destiny is more than blest—he who prevails, and takes you as his bride. Never have I laid eyes on equal beauty in man or woman. I am hushed indeed.

Homer
Thus she spoke; and I longed to embrace my dead mother's ghost. Thrice I tried to clasp her image, and thrice it slipped through my hands, like a shadow, like a dream.

Homer
He lives not long who battles with the immortals, nor do his children prattle about his knees when he has come back from battle and the dread fray.

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

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

Homer
There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.

Homer
I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, you too shall live but for a little season; death and the day of your doom are close upon you, and they will lay you low by the hand of Achilles son of Aiakos.

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

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

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

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