The Odyssey Quotes

“Take courage, my heart: you have been through worse than this. Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“I fancied my luck to be witnessing yet another full moon. True, I’d seen hundreds of full moons in my life, but they were not limitless. When one starts thinking of the full moon as a common sight that will come again to one’s eyes ad-infinitum, the value of life is diminished and life goes by uncherished. ‘This may be my last moon,’ I sighed, feeling a sudden sweep of sorrow; and went back to reading more of The Odyssey.”
― Roman Payne

“They say Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. Though I have never led an army, I am a wanderer. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“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.”
― The Odyssey

“And what if one of the gods does wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and painful experiences in war and on the stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Goddess of song, teach me the story
of a hero.”
― The Odyssey Oxford World Classics Ed.

“Question me now about all other matters, but do not ask who I am, for fear you may increase in my heart it's burden of sorrow as I think back; I am very full of grief, and I should not sit in the house of somebody else with my lamentation and wailing. It is not good to go on mourning forever.”
― Homer The Odyssey Book 19 115120

“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways,
who was driven far journeys”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Alexander the Great slept with
'The Iliad' beneath his pillow.
Though I’ve never led an army,
I am a wanderer. I cradle
'The Odyssey' nights while the
moon is waning, as if it were
the sweet body of a woman.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, as it pleases him, for he can do all things.”
― Homer

“When night falls and the world lies lost in sleep,
I take to my bed, my heart throbbing, about to break,
anxieties swarming, piercing—I may go mad with grief.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Upon my word, just see how mortal men always put the blame on us gods! We are the source of evil, so they say - when they have only their own madness to think if their miseries are worse than they ought to be.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“With a dark glance
wily Odysseus shot back, “Indecent talk, my friend.
You, you’re a reckless fool —I see that. 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. Not even
a god could improve those lovely looks of yours
but the mind inside is worthless.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Must you have battle in your heart forever? The bloody toil of combat? Old contender, will you not yield to the immortal gods? That nightmare cannot die, being eternal evil itself – horror, and pain, and chaos; there is no fighting her, no power can fight her. All that avails is flight.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“The gods granted us misery, in jealousy over the thought that we two, always together, should enjoy our youth, and then come to the threshold of old age.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“I was adrift on the high seas, but my course was becoming clear. It lay between the scylla of my peers and the swirling, sucking charybdis of my family. Veering toward scylla seemed much the safer route, and after navigating the passage, I soon washed up, a bit stunned, on a new shore. Like Odysseus on the island of the cyclops, I found myself facing a "being of colossal strength and ferocity, to whom the law of man and god meant nothing." In true heroic fashion, I moved toward the thing I feared. Yet while Odysseus schemed desperately to escape Polyphemus's cave, I found that I was quite content to stay here forever.”
― Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

“All right then. Here's my story. Even though
it plunges me into deeper grief than I feel now.
But that's the way of the world, when one has been
so far from home, so long away as I, roving over
many cities of men, enduring many hardships.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, (...) holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept. Odysseus brings not one man to shore with him. Yet he sleeps sound beside Calypso and when he wakes thinks only of Penelope.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Light as the viewless air the warrior maid Glides through the valves, and hovers round her head; A favourite virgin’s blooming form she took, From Dymas sprung, and thus the vision spoke: “Oh Indolent! to waste thy hours away!”
― Homer, Homers Odysseen

“But I'll cry out to the everlasting gods in hopes”
― Homer

“She mustn't mar her lovely face with tears”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“Living with him was like standing beside the sea. Each day a different colour, a different foam-capped height, but always the same restless intensity pulling towards the horizon.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Odysseus, son of Laertes, the great traveller, prince of wiles and tricks and a thousand ways. He showed me his scars, and in return let me pretend that I had none.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“There! I would think. In the bin! Where the bad things go! I like bins very much generally.”
― Lara Willaims

“There! I would think. In the bin! Where the bad things go! I liked bins very much generally.”
― Lara Williams

“One speech in't I chiefly loved.
T'was Aeneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priam's slaughter.
If it live in your memory, begin at this line”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet