Homer Quotes

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers, while the bad prevails.

Οὐ γάρ τις νέμεσις φυγέειν κακόν, οὐδ' ἀνὰ νύκτα.
βέλτερον ὃς φεύγων προφύγῃ κακὸν ἠὲ ἁλώῃ.

But you, Achilles,/ There is not a man in the world more blest than you — / There never has been, never will be one./ Time was, when you were alive, we Argives/ honored you as a god, and now down here, I see/ You Lord it over the dead in all your power./ So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.’

I reassured the ghost, but he broke out protesting,/ ‘No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!/ By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man — / Some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive — than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above all the others. Never disgrace the generation of your fathers. They were the bravest champions...

we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire.

A glorious death is his
Who for his country falls.

I hope nothing valuable may have been taken from the house in spite of you, but you know what women are—they always want to do the best they can for the man who marries them, and never give another thought to the children of their first husband, nor to their father either when he is dead and done with.

Δειλαί τοι δειλῶν γε καὶ ἐγγύαι ἐγγυάασθαι.

Καὶ σὲ γέρον τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι.

I will stay with it and endure through suffering hardship and once the heaving sea has shaken my raft to pieces, then I will swim.

Αἶψα γὰρ ἐν κακότητι βροτοὶ καταγηράσκουσιν.

Ὡς ὅτ' ἀνὴρ φόρμιγγος ἐπιστάμενος καὶ ἀοιδῆς
ῥηϊδίως ἐτάνυσσε νέῳ περὶ κόλλοπι χορδήν.

some things you will think of yourself,...some things God will put into your mind

Ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος
ὃς πολέμου ἔραται ἐπιδημίου ὀκρυόεντος.

His descent was like nightfall.