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Homer Quotes (0-)
Author, Poet
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About Homer
Homer (Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος) is best known as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He was believed by the ancient Greeks to have been the first and greatest of the epic poets. Author of the first known literature of Europe, he is central to the Western canon.
Best Homer Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Homer quotes.
“Ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς.
• Rosy-fingered Dawn.”
• Rosy-fingered Dawn.”
“Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή.
• The will of Zeus was accomplished.”
• The will of Zeus was accomplished.”
“Παρὰ θῖνα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης.
• Along the shore of the loud-roaring sea.”
• Along the shore of the loud-roaring sea.”
“Θεὸς διὰ πάντα τελευτᾷ.
• It is the god who accomplishes all things.”
• It is the god who accomplishes all things.”
Homer Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Homer quotes by topic.
Homer on Deity 8 quotes
View all 8 quotes on Deity →Homer on Work 6 quotes
View all 6 quotes on Work →Homer on Speech 6 quotes
“He, from whose lips divine persuasion flows.”
Homer on Fame 5 quotes
View all 5 quotes on Fame →Homer on Mind 4 quotes
View all 4 quotes on Mind →Homer on Character 4 quotes
View all 4 quotes on Character →Homer on Wisdom 4 quotes
View all 4 quotes on Wisdom →Homer on Artemis 4 quotes
“Artemis of the wilderness (agrotera), lady of wild beasts (potnia theron).”
Homer on Death 3 quotes
View all 3 quotes on Death →Homer on Man 3 quotes
View all 3 quotes on Man →What Homer Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Homer shared regarding contemporaries.
Homer on Women 4 quotes
View all 4 quotes on Women →Homer on Briseis 2 quotes
“He said, and soon, obeying his Intent, Patroclus brought Briseis from her Tent; Then to th’ intrusted Messengers resign’d: She wept, and often cast her Eyes behind;”
Homer on Palladas
“?”
Homer on Wives
“Andromache! my soul's far better part.”
Homer on Victor Hugo
“Homère est un des génies qui résolvent ce beau problème de l’art, le plus beau de tous peut-être, la peinture vraie de l’humanité obtenue par le grandissement de l’homme, c’est-à-dire la génération du réel dans l’idéal.”
Homer on Maiden
“Then when they had had their joy of food, she and her handmaids, they threw off their head-gear and fell to playing at ball, and white-armed Nausicaa was leader in the song. And even as Artemis, the archer, roves over the mountains, along the ridges of lofty Taÿgetus, or Erymanthus, joying in the pursuit of boars and swift deer, and with her sport the wood-nymphs, the daughters of Zeus who bears the aegis, and Leto is glad at heart—high above them all Artemis holds her head and brows, and easily may she be known, though all are fair—so amid her handmaidens shone the maid unwed.”
Quotes About Homer
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Homer from others.
Homeric "Hymn on Homer
O happy youth! on Homer
“O fortunate adolescens, qui tuae virtutis Homerum praeconem inveneris!”
Matthew Arnold on Homer
“The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author:—that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble.”
Joel Barlow on Homer
“Homer, for his astonishing variety, animation, and sublimity, has not a warmer admirer than myself; he has been for three thousand years, like a reigning sovereign, applauded as a matter of course, whether from love or fear; for no man with safety to his own character can refuse to join the chorus of his praise. I never can express (and his other admirers have not done it for me) the pleasure I receive from his poems; but in a view of philanthropy, I consider his existence as having been a serious misfortune to the human race. He has given to military life a charm which few men can resist, a splendor which envelopes the scenes of carnage in a cloud of glory, which dazzles the eyes of every beholder, steals from us our natural sensibilities in exchange for the artificial, debases men to brutes under the pretext of exalting them to gods, and obliterates with the same irresistible stroke the moral duties of life and the true policy of nations. Alexander is not the only human monster that has been formed after the model of Achilles; nor Persia and Egypt the only countries depopulated for no other reason than the desire of rivalling predecessors in military fame.”
Mary Ritter Beard on Homer
“One of the earliest- and perhaps the first-rivals of the hymnology of war, hatred, and revenge made immortal by Homer was the poetry of an Aeolian woman called Sappha by her people but uniformly known to later times as Sappho... Much of Sappho's poetry was of a plaintive tenderness but she had a fervid feeling for love as a saving grace. Several of her feminine disciples also sang of the beauty and healing force of love. Solon the law-giver and Plato the philosopher were deeply affected by her hymns to the great idea of a social power unrecognized by "the Bible of the Greeks": Homer.”
Hugh Blair on Homer
“Homer is the most simple in his style of all the great poets, and resembles most the style of the poetical parts of the Old Testament. They can have no conception of his manner, who are acquainted with him in Mr. Pope's translation only. An excellent poetical performance that translation is, and faithful in the main to the original. In some places, it may be thought to have even improved Homer. It has certainly softened some of his rudenesses, and added delicacy and grace to some of his sentiments. But withal, it is no other than Homer modernised. In the midst of the elegance and luxuriancy of Mr. Pope's language, we lose sight of the old bard's simplicity. I know indeed no author, to whom it is more difficult to do justice in a translation, than Homer.”
Samuel Butler on Homer
“They say no woman could possibly have written the Odyssey. To me, on the other hand, it seems even less possible that a man could have done so. As for its being by a practised and elderly writer, nothing but youth and inexperience could produce anything so naïve and so lovely.”
George Chapman on Homer 2 quotes
“Homer's poems were writ from a free fury, an absolute and full soul; Virgil's out of a courtly, laborious, and altogether imitatory spirit: not a simile he hath but is Homer's; not an invention, person, or disposition but is wholly or originally built upon Homerical foundations, and in many places hath the very words Homer useth; ... all Homer's books are such as have been precedents ever since of all sorts of poems; imitating none, nor ever worthily imitated of any.”
G. K. Chesterton on Homer
“Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the islands was a town of some sort, probably of the sort that we should call a village or hamlet with a wall. It was called Ilion but it came to be called Troy, and the name will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been a beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read and write, and was described by tradition as a blind, composed a poem about the Greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful woman in the world. That the most beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than such little towns is a historical fact.”
Winston Churchill on Homer
Kenyon Cox on Homer
“Being such an observer he was always making the most unexpected observations, and painting things that were not only unpainted till then but, apparently, unseen by anyone else.”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Homer
About Homer
Homer (Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος) is best known as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He was believed by the ancient Greeks to have been the first and greatest of the epic poets. Author of the first known literature of Europe, he is central to the Western canon.