The Iliad Quotes

“But as it is, death is everywhere
In more shapes than 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.”
― Homer, Iliad

“my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me - achilles, killing hector”
― Homer, Iliad

“With that he hurled and Athena drove the shaft
and it split the archer's nose between the eyes—
it cracked his glistening teeth, the tough bronze
cut off his tongue at the roots, smashed his jaw
and the point came ripping out beneath his chin.
He pitched from his car, armor clanged against him,
a glimmering blaze of metal dazzling round his back—”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Would, by father Zeus, Athene, and Apollo, that not a single man of all the Trojans might be left alive, nor yet of the Argives, but that we two might be alone left to tear aside the mantle that veils the brow of Troy.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“We men are wretched creatures and the gods have woven grief into our lives: but they themselves are free from care”
― Homer, The Iliad (Penguin Classics) by Homer Revised Edition [Paperback(2003)]

“And Zeus said: “Hera, you can choose some other time for paying your visit to Oceanus — for the present let us devote ourselves to love and to the enjoyment of one another. Never yet have I been so overpowered by passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as I am at this moment for yourself — not even when I was in love with the wife of Ixion who bore me Pirithoüs, peer of gods in counsel, nor yet with Danaë, the daintly ankled daughter of Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero Perseus. Then there was the daughter of Phonenix, who bore me Minos and Rhadamanthus. There was Semele, and Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted son Heracles, while Samele became mother to Bacchus, the comforter of mankind. There was queen Demeter again, and lovely Leto, and yourself — but with none of these was I ever so much enamored as I now am with you.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“Why do you ask about my ancestry? The generations of men are like the growth and fall of leaves. The wind shakes some to earth. The forest sprouts new foliage, and springtime comes. So to, one human generation comes to be, another ends. (trans. Emily Wilson)”
― Homer, Iliad

“¡Atrida! ¡Qué más quisiera yo que ser como cuando di muerte al divino Ereutalión, pero los dioses nunca conceden a los mortales todas las cosas a un tiempo, pues si era joven entonces, ahora la vejez me acosa! ¡Aún así me mezclaré con los jinetes y les exhortaré con consejos y con mandatos, ya que ése es privilegio de los viejos! ¡Que blandan las lanzas los jóvenes, que son más vigorosos que yo y tienen confianza en sus fuerzas!”
― Homer, Iliad

“Hippolocus begat me. I claim to be his son, and he sent me to Troy with strict instructions: Ever to excel, to do better than others, and to bring glory to your forebears, who indeed were very great.... This is my ancestry; this is the blood I am proud to inherit.”
― Homer, Iliad