Homer Men Quotations

Two urns on Jove's high throne have ever stood, the source of evil one, and one of good; from thence the cup of mortal man he fills, blessings to these, to those distributes ills; to most he mingles both.

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

Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say that we devise their misery. But they themselves- in their depravity- design grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.

Goddess-nurse of the young, give ear to my prayer, and grant that this woman may reject the love-embraces of youth and dote on grey-haired old men whose powers are dulled, but whose hearts still desire.

No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny.

A man dies still if he has done nothing, as one who has done much.

Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.

Young men's minds are always changeable, but when an old man is concerned in a matter, he looks both before and after.

Wine gives strength to weary men.

Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness—she with those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, gliding over the heads of men to trap us all. She entangles one man, now another.

Each man delights in the work that suits him best.

Fate is the same for the man who holds back, the same if he fights hard. We are all held in a single honor, the brave with the weaklings. A man dies still if he has done nothing, as the one who has done much.

…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'm not a bath man myself. More of a cologne man.

For never, never, wicked man was wise.

All my life I've been an obese man trapped inside a fat man's body.

Heaven hears and pities hapless men like me, For sacred ev'n to gods is misery.

Of men who have a sense of honor, more come through alive than are slain, but from those who flee comes neither glory nor any help.

Wine sets even a thoughtful man to singing, or sets him into softly laughing, sets him to dancing. Sometimes it tosses out a word that was better unspoken.

Whoever among men who walk the Earth has seen these Mysteries is blessed, but whoever in uninitiated and has not received his share of the rite, he will not have the same lot as the others, once he is dead and dwells in the mould where the sun goes down.

We are quick to flare up, we races of men on the earth.

Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,- Such men as live in these degenerate days.

The sun rose on the flawless brimming sea into a sky all brazen-all one brightening for gods immortal and for mortal men on plowlands kind with grain.

Pray, for all men need the aid of the gods.

There is a strength in the even of very sorry men

Books are useless! I only ever read one book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin but what good does that do me?

As leaves on the trees, such is the life of man.

To labour is the lot of man below; And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe.

The lot of man-to suffer and die.

Zeus does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment.

We men are wretched things.

Reproach is infinite, and knows no end So voluble a weapon is the tongue; Wounded, we wound; and neither side can fail For every man has equal strength to rail.

Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.

No one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born.

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.

[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.

Strife and Confusion joined the fight, along with cruel Death, who seized one wounded man while still alive and then another man without a wound, while pulling the feet of one more corpse out from the fight. The clothes Death wore around her shoulders were dyed red with human blood.

Achilles glared at him and answered, "Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall

Why so much grief for me? No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate. And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you - it’s born with us the day that we are born.

Let him submit to me! Only the god of death is so relentless, Death submits to no one—so mortals hate him most of all the gods. Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king, I am the elder-born, I claim—the greater man.

Is he not sacred, even to the gods, the wandering man who comes in weariness?

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.

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

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.

A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time

...if fifty bands of men surrounded us/ and every sword sang for your blood,/ you could make off still with their cows and sheep.

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.

Think not to match yourself against the gods, for men that walk the earth cannot hold their own with the immortals.

The natural thing, my lord, men and women joined.

Zeus most glorious and most great, Thundercloud, throned in the heavens! Let not the sun go down and the darkness come, until I cast down headlong the citadel of Priam in flames, and burn his gates with blazing fire, and tear to rags the shirt upon Hectors breast! May many of his men fall about him prone in the dust and bite the earth!

It's man's to fight, but heaven's to give success.

All men have need of the gods.

I would rather be a serf in a poor man's house and be above ground than reign among the dead.

Oall the creatures that creep and breathe on earth, there is none more wretched than man.

A young man is embarrassed to question an older one.

Nothing feebler does earth nurture than man, Of all things breathing and moving.

The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken.

How delicate her feet who shuns the ground, Stepping a-tiptoe on the heads of men.

Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up with the swift.

See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly.

Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back! Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down. Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one - and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess, with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle!

There is nothing alive more agonized than man / of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.

But you, Achilles,/ There is not a man in the world more blest than you--/ There never has been, never will be one./ Time was, when you were alive, we Argives/ honored you as a god, and now down here, I see/ You Lord it over the dead in all your power./ So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.’ I reassured the ghost, but he broke out protesting,/ ‘No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!/ By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man--/ Some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

...he'll never lie - the man is far too wise.

There is no greater fame for a man than that which he wins with his footwork or the skill of his hands.

A man's life breath cannot come back again-- no raiders in force, no trading brings it back, once it slips through a man's clenched teeth.

The hearts of great men can be changed.

Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth.

Two diverse gates there are of bodiless dreams, These of sawn ivory, and those of horn. Such dreams as issue where the ivory gleams Fly without fate, and turn our hopes to scorn. But dreams which issue through the burnished horn, What man soe'er beholds them on his bed, These work with virtue and of truth are born.

Victory passes back and forth between men.

Forget the brother and resume the man.

Steel itself oft lures a man to fight.

In saffron-colored mantle from the tides Of Oceans rose the Morning to bright light TO gods and men.

Beyond his strength no man can fight, although he be eager.

Just are the ways of heaven; from Heaven proceed The woes of man: Heaven doom'd the Greeks to bleed.

That is the gods' work, spinning threads of death through the lives of mortal men, an all to make a song for those to come.

The god of war is impartial: he hands out death to the man who hands out death.

The best thing in the world [is] a strong house held in serenity where man and wife agree.

A shamefaced man makes a bad beggar.

One man is a splendid fighter -- a god has made him so -- one's a dancer, another skilled at lyre and song, and deep in the next man's chest farseeing Zeus plants the gift of judgment, good clear sense. And many reap the benefits of that treasure.

The gods, likening themselves to all kinds of strangers, go in various disguises from city to city, observing the wrongdoing and the righteousness of men.

Wide-sounding Zeus takes away half a man's worth on the day when slavery comes upon him.

It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country.

Among all men on the earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.

The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there of every kind.

Take thou thy arms and come with me, For we must quit ourselves like men, and strive To air our cause, although we be but two. Great is the strength of feeble arms combined, And we can combat even with the brave.

So it is that the gods do not give all men gifts of grace - neither good looks nor intelligence nor eloquence.

You will certainly not be able to take the lead in all things yourself, for to one man a god has given deeds of war, and to another the dance, to another lyre and song, and in another wide-sounding Zeus puts a good mind.

Even when someone battles hard, there is an equal portion for one who lingers behind, and in the same honor are held both the coward and the brave man; the idle man and he who has done much meet death alike.

The man who acts the least, upbraids the most.

Whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.

It is not right to exult over slain men.

Never to be cast away are the gifts of the gods, magnificent, which they give of their own will, no man could have them for wanting them.

I, for one, know of no sweeter sight for a man's eyes than his own country.

Nothing in the world is so incontinent as a man's accursed appetite.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,- Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies: They fall successive, and successive rise.

If any man obeys the gods, they listen to him also.

The man does better who runs from disaster than he who is caught by it.

It is the bold man who every time does best, at home or abroad.

And they die an equal death — the idler and the man of mighty deeds.