Homer

“Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, and asks no omen, but his country's cause.”

“...like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glitter in brilliance.”

“Wise to resolve, and patient to perform.”

“You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you’d run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!”

“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.”

“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.”

“In youth and beauty, wisdom is but rare!”

“Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep,even so I will endure…For already have I suffered full much,and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war.Let this be added to the tale of those.”

“…and they limp and halt, they’re all wrinkled, drawn, they squint to the side, can’t look you in the eyes, and always bent on duty, trudging after Ruin, maddening, blinding Ruin. But Ruin is strong and swift—She outstrips them all by far, stealing a march, leaping over the whole wide earth to bring mankind to grief.”

“For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother”

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”

“…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”

“I would disapprove of another hospitable man who was excessive in friendship, as of one excessive in hate. In all things balance is better.”

“And empty words are evil.”

“True friends appear less moved than counterfeit.”

“But they could neither of them persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and however splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far from father or mother, he does not care about it.”

“How vain, without the merit, is the name.”

“Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than war.”

“Heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth a time for all things.”

“There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.”