The Iliad / The Odyssey Quotes

“Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.”
― Homer, The Iliad / The Odyssey

“Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the generations of mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away”
― Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey

“Revere the gods, Achilles! Pity me in my own right, remember your own father! I deserve more pity...I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before - I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.”
― Homer, The Iliad / The Odyssey

“So they fought to the death around that benched beaked ship as Patroclus reached Achilles, his great commander, and wept warm tears like a dark spring running down some desolate rock face, its shaded currents flowing. And the brilliant runner Achilles saw him coming, filled with pity and spoke out winging words:
"Why in tears, Patroclus? Like a girl, a baby running after her mother, begging to be picked up, and she tugs at her skirts, holding her back as she tries to hurry off-all tears, fawning up at her till she takes her into her arms... That's how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.”
― Homer, The Iliad / The Odyssey

“Then thus the god: “O restless fate of pride, That strives to learn what heaven resolves to hide; Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr’d, Anxious to thee, and odious to thy lord. Let this suffice: the immutable decree No force can shake: what is, that ought to be. Goddess, submit; nor dare our will withstand, But dread the power of this avenging hand:”
― Homer, Iliad And Odyssey

“La misma recompensa obtiene el que se queda en su tienda, que el que pelea con bizarría; en igual consideración son tenidos el cobarde y el valiente; y así muere el holgazán como el laborioso.”
― Homer, La Ilíada y La Odisea

“wine-dark sea.”
― Homer, Iliad And Odyssey

“We should go through the city with our tale,”
― Homer, Iliad And Odyssey

“We should go through the city”
― Homer, Iliad And Odyssey

“Her face was melting, like the snow that Zephyr
scatters across the mountain peaks; then Eurus
thaws it, and as it melts, the rivers swell
and flow again. So were her lovely cheeks
dissolved in tears.”
― Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey

“Then at last his sorrowing wife detailed the horrors that befall those whose city is taken; she reminded him how the men are slain, and the city is given over to the flames, while the women and children are carried into captivity; when he heard all this, his heart was touched, and he donned his armour to go forth.”
― Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey

“Alexandrus, husband of lovely Helen, put on his goodly armour. First he greaved his legs with greaves of good make and fitted with ancle-clasps of silver; after this he donned the cuirass of his brother Lycaon, and fitted it to his own body; he hung his silver-studded sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then his mighty shield. On his comely head he set his helmet, well-wrought, with a crest of horse-hair that nodded menacingly above it, and he grasped a redoubtable spear that suited his hands.”
― Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey

“ODYSSÉE, VIII, LES AMOURS D'ARÈS ET D'APHRODITE (479-480) :

‘’Il n’est d’homme ici-bas qui ne doive aux aèdes l’estime et le respect.”
― Homère, L'Iliade et l'Odysée

“They that shun dishonour more often live than get killed, but they that fly save neither life nor name.”
― Homer, The Iliad & The Odyssey

“Moderation is best in all things, and not letting a man go when he wants to do so is as bad as telling him to go if he would like to stay. One should treat a guest well as long as he is in the house and speed him when he wants to leave it.”
― Homer, The Iliad / The Odyssey

“We must protect our knowledge and pass it on whenever we can.”
― Julie Kagawa, The Iliad / The Odyssey

“My word, how mortals take the gods to task!
All their afflictions come from us, we hear.
And what of their own failings? Greed and folly
double the suffering in the lot of man.”
― Robert Fitzgerald, The Odyssey and The Iliad

“A forest fire will rage
through deep glens of a mountain, crackling dry
from summer heat, and coppices blaze up
in every quarter as wind whips the flame:
so Akhilleus flashed to right and left
like a wild god, trampling the men he killed,
and black earth ran with blood. As when a countryman
yokes oxen with broad brows to tread out barley
on a well-bedded threshing floor. and quickly
the grain is husked under the bellowing beasts:
the sharp-hooved horses of Akhilleus just so
crushed dead men and shields. His axle-tree
was splashed with blood, so was his chariot rail,
with drops thrown up by wheels and horses' hooves.
And Peleus' son kept riding for his glory.
staining his powerful arms with mire and blood.”
― Robert Fitzgerald, The Odyssey and The Iliad

“Child, I am lost now. Can I bear my life
after the death of suffering your death?”
― Robert Fitzgerald, The Odyssey and The Iliad

“Por espacio de nueve días acarrearon abundante leña; y, cuando por décima vez apuntó la aurora, que trae la luz a los mortales, sacaron llorando el cadáver del audaz Héctor, lo pusieron en lo alto de la pira y le prendieron fuego.”
― Homer, La Ilíada y La Odisea

“Afrodita, amante de la risa,”
― Homer, La Ilíada y La Odisea

“Laertes was delighted when he heard this. "Good heavens," he exclaimed, "what a day I am enjoying: I do indeed rejoice at it. My son and grandson are vying with one another in the matter of valour.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“Listen to me,' said he, 'my poor comrades. All deaths are bad enough but there is none so bad as famine. Why should not we drive in the best of these cows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal gods? If we ever get back to Ithaca, we can build a fine temple to the sun-god and enrich it with every kind of ornament; if, however, he is determined to sink our ship out of revenge for these homed cattle, and the other gods are of the same mind, I for one would rather drink salt water once for all and have done with it, than be starved to death by inches in such a desert island as this is.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“All day long the atmosphere of the house is loaded with the savour of roasting meats till it groans again, yard and all;”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“They are very fond of one another, but I do not think they will lie there longer than they can help, nor do I think that they will sleep much; there, however, they shall stay till her father has repaid me the sum I gave him for his baggage of a daughter, who is fair but not honest.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“But how, Mentor," replied Telemachus, "dare I go up to Nestor, and how am I to address him? I have never yet been used to holding long conversations with people, and am ashamed to begin questioning one who is so much older than myself." "Some things, Telemachus," answered Minerva, "will be suggested to you by your own instinct, and heaven will prompt you further; for I am assured that the gods have been with you from the time of your birth until now.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“His son Antiphus had gone with Ulysses to Ilius, land of noble steeds, but the savage Cyclops had killed him when they were all shut up in the cave, and had cooked his last dinner for him. {17}”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“As when some cruel spite has befallen a man that he should have killed some one in his own country, and must fly to a great man's protection in a land of strangers, and all marvel who see him, even so did Achilles marvel as he beheld Priam.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“The god wrought also a pasture in a fair mountain dell, and a large flock of sheep, with a homestead and huts, and sheltered sheepfolds. Furthermore he wrought a green, like that which Daedalus once made in Cnossus for lovely Ariadne. Hereon there danced youths and maidens whom all would woo, with their hands on one another's wrists. The maidens wore robes of light linen, and the youths well woven shirts that were slightly oiled. The girls were crowned with garlands, while the young men had daggers of gold that hung by silver baldrics; sometimes they would dance deftly in a ring with merry twinkling feet, as it were a potter sitting at his work and making trial of his wheel to see whether it will run, and sometimes they would go all in line with one another, and much people was gathered joyously about the green. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them when the man struck up with his tune. All round the outermost rim of the shield he set the mighty stream of the river Oceanus.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer

“Then Glaucus son of Hippolochus looked fiercely at Hector and rebuked him sternly. "Hector," said he, "you make a brave show, but in fight you are sadly wanting. A runaway like yourself has no claim to so great a reputation. Think how you may now save your town and citadel by the hands of your own people born in Ilius; for you will get no Lycians to fight for you, seeing what thanks they have had for their incessant hardships.”
― Homer, The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer