"Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!"
— Homer

"Even a fool learns something once it hits him."
— Homer (Iliad)

"Achilles: I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
"
— Homer (The Iliad)

"There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep."
— Homer

"Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another."
— Homer (The Iliad, The Odyssey and the Lesser Homerica)

"For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother"
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"If you serve too many masters, you'll soon suffer."
— Homer

"I have no interest at all in food and drink, but only in slaughter and blood and the agonized groans of mangled men"
— Homer

"Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries yes but they themselves with their own reckless ways compound their pains beyond their proper share."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Sing to me, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought countless ills upon the Acheans."
— Homer (The Iliad)

"A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time"
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death"
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Do not beg me by knees or by parents you dog! I only wish I were savagely wrathful enough to hack up your corpse and eat it raw"
— Homer

"There will be killing till the score is paid."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"The journey is the thing."
— Homer

"Here, therefore, huge and mighty warrior though you be, here shall you die."
— Homer (Iliad)

"I didn't lie! I just created fiction with my mouth!"
— Homer

"Tell me, O muse, of travellers far and wide"
— Homer

"Now from his breast into the eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big serf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever.

--from The Odyssey, Homer
[Quoted in The Time Traveler's Wife]"
— Homer

""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." Odyssey"
— Homer

"Life is largely a matter of expectation. "
— Homer

"youth is quick in feeling but weak in judgement."
— Homer

"The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others.
"
— Homer

"For they imagined as they wished--that it was a wild shot,/ an unintended killing--fools, not to comprehend/ they were already in the grip of death./ But glaring under his brows Odysseus answered:

'You yellow dogs, you thought I'd never make it/ home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder,/ twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared/ bid for my wife while I was still alive./ Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven,/ contempt for what men say of you hereafter./ Your last hour has come. You die in blood."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races. "
— Homer

"So, the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once, not build and brains and flowing speech to all. One man may fail to impress us with his looks but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm, and men look on with delight when he speaks out. Never faltering, filled with winning self-control, he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze at him like a god when he walks through the streets. Another man may look like a deathless one on high but there's not a bit of grace to crown his words. Just like you, my fine, handsome friend."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"down from his brow
she ran his curls
like thick hyacinth clusters
full of blooms"
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"All men owe honor to the poets - honor and awe; for they are dearest to the Muse who puts upon their lips the ways of life."
— Homer

"Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Think not to match yourself against the gods, for men that walk the earth cannot hold their own with the immortals."
— Homer (Iliad)

"'...if fifty bands of men surrounded us/ and every sword sang for your blood,/ you could make off still with their cows and sheep.'"
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"All things are in the hand of heaven, and Folly, eldest of Jove's daughters, shuts men's eyes to their destruction. She walks delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the heads of men to make them stumble or to ensnare them."
— Homer (The Iliad)

"It behooves a father to be blameless if he expects his child to be."
— Homer

"Now from his breast into his eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big surf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles."
— Homer (The Iliad & The Odyssey)

"A small rock holds back a great wave."
— Homer

"Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile"
— Homer

"Immortals are never alien to one another."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Aries in his many fits knows no favorites."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"And when long years and seasons wheeling brought around that point of time ordained for him to make his passage homeward, trials and dangers, even so, attended him even in Ithaca, near those he loved.” "
— Homer

"Each man delights in the work that suits him best."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"A young man is embarrassed to question an older one."
— Homer

"For such is surely the lot that powerful fate spun out for him on the day when I myself bore him, that he should glut the lean guts of flashing-swift dogs far from his loving parents, a corpse by the lodge of a violent monster, whose liver I'd joyfully eat, if only somehow i could sink my teeth into it!"
— Homer

"Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another"
— Homer (The Iliad)

"Vain is your boast in that you have scratched the sole of my foot... A worthless coward can inflict but a light wound. When I wound a man, though I but graze his skin, it is another matter, for my weapon will lay him low. His wife will tear her cheeks out for grief and his children will be fatherless: there he will rot, reddening the earth with his blood, and vultures, not women, will gather round him."
— Homer (Iliad)

"[I]t is the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the
man to dancing... it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told."
— Homer (The Odyssey)

"Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them."
— Homer

"Im Frieden begraben die Söhne ihre Väter, im Krieg begraben Väter ihre Söhne."
— Homer

""A sympathetic friend can be quite as dear as a brother." "
— Homer