The Iliad Quotes

“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“They say Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. Though I have never led an army, I am a wanderer. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“Homer, in the second book of the Iliad says with fine enthusiasm, "Give me masturbation or give me death." Caesar, in his Commentaries, says, "To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and to the impotent it is a benefactor. They that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion." In another place this experienced observer has said, "There are times when I prefer it to sodomy." Robinson Crusoe says, "I cannot describe what I owe to this gentle art." Queen Elizabeth said, "It is the bulwark of virginity." Cetewayo, the Zulu hero, remarked, "A jerk in the hand is worth two in the bush." The immortal Franklin has said, "Masturbation is the best policy." Michelangelo and all of the other old masters--"old masters," I will remark, is an abbreviation, a contraction--have used similar language. Michelangelo said to Pope Julius II, "Self-negation is noble, self-culture beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared with self-abuse." Mr. Brown, here, in one of his latest and most graceful poems, refers to it in an eloquent line which is destined to live to the end of time--"None knows it but to love it; none name it but to praise.”
― Mark Twain, On Masturbation

“When night falls and the world lies lost in sleep,
I take to my bed, my heart throbbing, about to break,
anxieties swarming, piercing—I may go mad with grief.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Alexander the Great slept with
'The Iliad' beneath his pillow.
Though I’ve never led an army,
I am a wanderer. I cradle
'The Odyssey' nights while the
moon is waning, as if it were
the sweet body of a woman.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“His reward is the eternal fame that is both priceless and worthless”
― Stephen Fry, Troy

“Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“All right then. Here's my story. Even though
it plunges me into deeper grief than I feel now.
But that's the way of the world, when one has been
so far from home, so long away as I, roving over
many cities of men, enduring many hardships.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Command thy vassals, but command not me.”
― Homer, The Iliad of Homer

“To which end grace me with thine arms, since any shadow seen
Of thy resemblance, all the pow'r of perjur'd Troy will fly,
And so our tired friends will breathe: our fresh-set-on supply
Will easily drive their wearied off.”
― Homer

“We reached shallow sands and started to die
as hails of spears and arrows landed on us.
With our feet we had to fight waves of water,
while with our hands we had to fight waves of men.”
― Yann Martel, Son of Nobody

“The white-horsed myth.”
― Stesichoros

“Shame on you Argives, we are now utterly undone, unless we can save ourselves by driving the enemy from our ships. Do you think, if Hector takes them, that you will be able to get home by land? Can you not hear him cheering on his whole host to fire our fleet, and bidding them remember that they are not at a dance but in battle?”
― Homer Translated by Samuel Butler

“I do not think nobility is a quality to directly strive for; you must write as well as you can, and then see, or let others see, whether or not the result is noble.”
― Richmond Lattimore

“A man cleared his throat and said he in a deep voice,
“You won, Psoas, and you should have left it at that.”
It was Hades, Lord of the Underworld.
Psoas had meant to return to his tent,
but instead he was hoisted up in the air,
the dark lord holding him tightly by the scrotum,
his fist a hard ball and his knuckles white.”
― Yann Martel, Son of Nobody