Best Homer Iliad Quotes & Sayings

Homer's Iliad was the cultural encyclopedia of pre-literate Greece, the didactic vehicle that provided men with guidance for the management of their spiritual, ethical, and social lives. — Marshall McLuhan

Surely, by all convention, the Iliad will end here, with the triumphant return of its vindicated hero. But the Iliad is not a conventional epic, and at the very moment of its hero's greatest military triumph, Homer diverts his focus from Achilles to the epic's two most important casualties, Patroklos and Hektor: it is to the consequences of their deaths, especially to the victor, that all action of the Iliad has been inexorably leading. — Caroline Alexander

And overpowered by memory
Both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely
For man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouching
Before Achilles' feet as Achilles wept himself,
Now for his father, now for Patroclus once again
And their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house. — Homer

Hail, Columbia! Home of the six inch cockroach and the stadium-sized lecture hall. A reservation for rich white people guarded by poor brown people in a sea of urban decay. Where nobody on the faculty has ever spent ten minutes in the freshman dorm, but everybody talks about humanism and compassion. They teach you that military people are scum, trash, the lowest of the low
and then they assign Homer's ILIAD just to develop your sense of irony. Where else can you see three suicides a month dismissed as slightly above average, but better than Smith or Brown? — Ted Rall

The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name. — Aldous Huxley

When it comes to the New Testament, we can be confident we are reading from accurate sources, because we have so many ancient copies to compare. For many ancient texts there are only a handful of manuscripts in existence. We have only nine or ten good copies of Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars. The best-preserved, non-biblical ancient writing we have is Homer's Iliad, of which there are only 643 copies. Compare these numbers to the New Testament, which is based on nearly six thousand Greek manuscripts plus over nine thousand ancient copies in other languages. If that were not enough, even if all of these copies were lost, we could reconstruct all but eleven verses of the New Testament from ancient quotations of the Bible. — Douglas M. Beaumont

His tales took on the form of an epic poem, and I felt I was hearing some Canadian Homer reciting his Iliad of the High Arctic regions. — Jules Verne

This found its classic expression in Homer's Iliad, in which Glaucus says to Diomedes that he still hears his father's urgings ringing in his ears: Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head high above the others. — Anthony Everitt

Troy is based on the epic poem The Iliad by Homer , according to the credits. Homer's estate should sue. — Roger Ebert

In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more. — Henry David Thoreau

Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it. — Homer

A Kindle returns us to the inconvenience of the scroll, except with batteries and electronic glitches. It's as handy as bringing Homer along to recite the 'Iliad' while playing a lyre. — P. J. O'Rourke

Victory passes back and forth between men. — Homer

Nay if even in the house of Hades the dead forget their dead, yet will I even there be mindful of my dear comrade. — Homer

After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes? — Umberto Eco

Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare ... The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare. — Victor Hugo

This, the only occasion in the Iliad when furious Achilles smiles serves as a bittersweet reminder of the difference real leadership could have made to the events of the Iliad. Agamemnon's panicked prize-grabbing in Book One and even Nestor's rambling "authority" pale beside Achilles' instinctive and absolute command of himself and the dangers of this occasion. — Caroline Alexander

Honour to Agamemnon is a thing / That he can pick, pick up, put back, pick up again, / A somesuch you might find beneath your bed. — Christopher Logue

If you are very valiant, it is a god, I think, who gave you this gift. — Homer

Strife, only a slight thing when she first rears her head but her head soon hits the sky as she strides across the earth. — Homer

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. — Homer

Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you.
As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions,
nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement
but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other,
so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be
oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then
to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield's guard. — Homer

When Homer composed the Iliad and Odyssey, he was drawing on centuries of history and folklore handed down by oral tradition. When Nicolas Poussin painted The Rape of the Sabine Women, he was re-creating Roman history. When Marcel Proust dipped his petites madeleines into his tea, the taste and aroma set off a flood of memories and emotions from which modern literature has still not recovered. — Twyla Tharp

He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before. — Homer

Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. — Homer

Antilochus! You're the most appalling driver in the world! Go to hell! — Homer

It was built against the will of the immortal gods, and so it did not last for long. — Homer

It is not possible to fight beyond your strength, even if you strive. — Homer

No ancient story, not even Homer's Iliad or Odyssey, has remained as popular through the course of time. The story of Rama appears as old as civilization and has a fresh appeal for every generation. — David Frawley

My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I will not return alive but my name will live forever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death shall take me. — Homer

I have a confession to make. The love affair of my life has been with the Greek language. I have now reached the age when it has occurred to me that I may have read some books for the last time. I suddenly thought that there are books I cannot bear not to read again before I die. One that stands out a mile is Homer's Iliad. — William Golding

Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance. — Patrick Kavanagh

Better to live or die, once and for all, than die by inches. — Homer

In this night too, in this night of his mortal eyes into which he was now descending, love and danger were again waiting ...
a murmur of glory and hexameters, of men defending a temple the gods will not save, and of black vessels searching the sea for a beloved isle;
the murmor of the Odysseys and Iliads it was his destiny to sing and leave echoing concavely in the memory of man.
These things we know, but not those he felt descending into the last shade of all. — Jorge Luis Borges