Stanley Lombardo Quotes

It was glorious to see—if your heart were iron,
And you could keep from grieving at all the pain.

Some say an army on horseback,
some say on foot, and some say ships
are the most beautiful things
on this black earth,
but I say
it is whatever you love.

Shimmering,
iridescent,
deathless Aphrodite.

I have borne what no man
Who has walked this earth has ever yet borne.
I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son.

Ah, my friend, if you and I could only
Get out of the war alive and then
immortal and ageless all of our days,
I would never again fight among the foremost
Or send you into battle where men win glory.
But as it is, death is everywhere
In more shapes that we can count,
And since no mortal is immune or can escape,
Let's go forward, either to give glory
To another man, or get glory from him.

Your mission, Roman, is to rule the world.
These will be your arts: to establish peace,
To spare the humbled, and to conquer the proud.

Don't try to sell me on death, Odysseus.
I'd rather be a hired hand back up on earth,
Slaving away for some poor dirt farmer,
Than lord it over all these withered dead.

The moon has set,
And the Pleiades.
Midnight.
The hour has gone by.
I sleep alone.

Don't try to cut any deals with me, Hector.
Do lions make peace treaties with men?
Do wolves and lambs agree to get along?

There's no way to get around the mind of Zeus.

The Way is calm and wide,
Not easy, not difficult.
But small minds get lost.
Hurrying, they fall behind. Clinging, they go too far,
Sure to take a wrong turn.
Just let it be! In the end,
Nothing goes, nothing stays.

Rage: Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain.

Whoever escapes marriage
And women's harm, comes to deadly old age
Without any son to support him.

Human generations are like leaves in their seasons.
The wind blows them to the ground, but the tree
Sprouts new ones when spring comes again.
Men too. Their generations come and go.

We know how to tell many believable lies,
But also, when we want to, how to speak the plain truth.