Homer Quotes

A deep sleep took hold upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows.

A last request — grant it, please.
Never bury my bones apart from yours, Achilles,
let them lie together . . .
just as we grew up together in your house

The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend as to find a friend worth dying for.

Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us.
Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me, unrelentingly to rage on

Ἥσω γὰρ καὶ ἐγώ, τὰ δέ κεν Διὶ πάντα μελήσει.

"Hyrtacides pummeled his thighs and groaned and bit his lip and said: "O Father Zeus, you, even you, turn out to be a liar." [bk.12]"

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.

Τοίω τὼ χείρεσσιν ὑπ' Αἰνείαο δαμέντε
καππεσέτην, ἐλάτῃσιν ἐοικότες ὑψηλῇσι.

There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.

"Say not a word in death's favor; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead." -Achilles

Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back!
Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce
as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down.
Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one -
and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess,
with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle!

All men need the gods...

Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.

Heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth a time for all things.

And what if one of the gods does wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and painful experiences in war and on the stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more.