Illiad Quotes & Sayings

...writing allows us to reposition ourselves so we can see what is otherwise in our mental blind spots or those things about oneself and the world that we neither can see nor understand from the spot where we stand. — Rob Bignell, Editor

Almost nothing is known about Homer, which explains why so much has been written about him. — Richard Armour

Helen

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses. — H.D.

The cream of a generation was lost in the mud of Flanders. Etonians went over the top with the Illiad in their knapsacks and Athens in their hearts. To protest that such men were statistically not even a trace among the British soldiers killed is to miss the point. At all times the great majority of people have been ignorant of the classics; but the men who mattered; who governed, declared wars and resisted innovation have always had Latin and Greek. — William Donaldson

She had reason to doubt him; he was real good at planning but real bad at doing. — Junot Diaz

You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk. — J.K. Rowling

Sometimes I want to have a mental book burning that would scour my mind clean of all the filthy visions literature has conjured there. But how to do without 'The Illiad?' How to do without 'Macbeth?' — Geraldine Brooks

Always, in these times, I am wretched save when sleep comes to me. Therefore, I have come to look upon sleep as the best of all gifts. - Helen, about the war — Rosemary Sutcliff

Dr. Timothy Shutt, in the context of the Illiad, explains the larger meaning of armor in Greek culture. It is the visible reputation of the warrior -- his gravitas, his wake. This allows another warrior to go out and win victories in the armor of Achilles. — Timothy B. Shutt

The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying. — Thomas C. Foster

Let us not be defeated by the tyranny of the world financial markets that threaten peace and democracy everywhere. — Stephane Hessel

Teaching children about entrepreneurship is much like imparting any other skill or piece of knowledge. You will provide them with ways to experience how entrepreneurship works, and you guide them toward the subjects or areas they seem to show an interest in. — Naveen Jain