Homer
Iliad and Odyssey
Sayings by Homer
Beauty, terrible beauty! A deathless goddess — so she strikes our eyes!
Doesn't the son of Tydeus know, down deep, the man who fights the gods does not live long?
Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured.
Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed.
After the event, even a fool is wise.
To be loved, you have to be nice to people, everyday. But to be hated, you don't have to do squat!
Because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything.
The stars never lie, but the astrologers lie about the stars.
Better to live or die, once and for all, than die by inches.
Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth.
Would that I were still young and strong as I was in those days, for then some one of you swineherds would give me a cloak both out of good will and for the respect due to a brave soldier; but now people look down upon me because my clothes are shabby.
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.
My every impulse bends to what is right. Not iron, trust me, the heart with my breast. I am all compassion.
There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.
But death is universal. Even gods cannot protect the people that they love, when fate and cruel death catch up with them.
Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.
Nothing feebler than a man does the earth raise up, of all the things which breathe and move on the earth, for he believes that he will never suffer evil in the future, as long as the gods give him success and he flourishes in his strength; but when the blessed gods bring sorrows too to pass, even these he bears, against his will, with steadfast spirit, for the thoughts of earthly men are like the day which the father of gods and men brings upon them.
A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time.
Uncontrollable laughter arose among the blessed gods.
I wish that strife would vanish away from among gods and mortals, and gall, which makes a man grow angry for all his great mind, that gall of anger that swarms like smoke inside of a man's heart and becomes a thing sweeter to him by far than the dripping of honey.