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Current counts: Authors: 8,146. Quotations: 38,970
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| Homer
A companion's words of persuasion are effective.A councilor ought not to sleep the whole night through, a man to whom the populace is entrusted, and who has many responsibilities. A decent boldness ever meets with friends. A generation of men is like a generation of leaves; the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, while others the burgeoning wood brings forth – and the season of spring comes on. So of men one generation springs forth and another ceases. A guest never forgets the host who had treated him kindly. A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king. A small rock holds back a great wave. A sympathetic friend can be quite as dear as a brother. A young man is embarrassed to question an older one. Achilles absent was achilles still! All men have need of the gods. All strangers and beggars are from Zeus, and a gift, though small, is precious. 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. And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared. As leaves on the trees, such is the life of man. Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this. But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions. Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle courtesy. Even a fool may be wise after the event. Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured. Even were sleep is concerned, too much is a bad thing. 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. Even where sleep is concerned, too much is a bad thing. Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up with the swift. 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. For rarely are sons similar to their fathers: most are worse, and a few are better than their fathers. Grey-eyed athena sent them a favorable wind, a gentle breeze singing over the wine-dark sea. Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before. He lives not long who battles with the immortals, nor do his children prattle about his knees when he has come back from battle and the dread fray. How vain, without the merit, is the name. I detest the man who hides one thing in the depth of his heart and speaks forth another. I should rather labor as another's serf, in the home of a man without fortune, one whose livelihood was meager, than rule over all the departed dead. I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown. If you are very valiant, it is a god, I think, who gave you this gift. It is equally offensive to speed a guest who would like to stay and to detain one who is anxious to leave. It is equally wrong to speed a guest who does not want to go, and to keep one back who is eager. You ought to make welcome the present guest, and send forth the one who wishes to go. It is not good to have a rule of many. It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country. It is tedious to tell again tales already plainly told. It was built against the will of the immortal gods, and so it did not last for long. Light is the task where many share the toil. Look now how mortals are blaming the gods, for they say that evils come from us, but in fact they themselves have woes beyond their share because of their own follies. Miserable mortals who, like leaves, at one moment flame with life, eating the produce of the land, and at another moment weakly perish. Not vain the weakest, if their force unite. 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. Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it. Plough the watery deep. So it is that the gods do not give all men gifts of grace – neither good looks nor intelligence nor eloquence. The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others. The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for. The fates have given mankind a patient soul. The glorious gifts of the gods are not to be cast aside. 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. The minds of the everlasting gods are not changed suddenly. The outcome of the war is in our hands; the outcome of words is in the council. The persuasion of a friend is a strong thing. The single best augury is to fight for one's country. 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. Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. There is a fullness of all things, even of sleep and love. There is a strength in the union even of very sorry men. There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep. There is nothing more dread and more shameless than a woman who plans such deeds in her heart as the foul deed which she plotted when she contrived her husband's murder. 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. There she met sleep, the brother of death. Thus have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals: that they live in grief while they themselves are without cares; for two jars stand on the floor of Zeus of the gifts which he gives, one of evils and another of blessings. To die for a friend is not so great a difficulty as to find a friend worth dying for. 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. We are quick to flare up, we races of men on the earth. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus bound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited his hands, for he wanted to go into the city. Whoever obeys the gods, to him they particularly listen. Wide-sounding Zeus takes away half a man's worth on the day when slavery comes upon him. Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, and asks no omen, but his country's cause. Without a sign, the brave man draws his sword, and asks no omen, but his country's cause. Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other's good, and melt at other's woe. You ought not to practice childish ways, since you are no longer that age. 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. Young men's minds are always changeable, but when an old man is concerned in a matter, he looks both before and after. Zeus does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment. |
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