Iliad Quotes - Page 3

• Without oblivion, there is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion and memory are wise, when the general soul of man is clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the Past.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Wise, Memories, Past

  Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Carlyle (1857). “Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches: With Elucidations”, p.6

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• Troy is based on the epic poem The Iliad by Homer , according to the credits. Homer's estate should sue.

  Roger Ebert

  Epic, Credit, Should

  Roger Ebert (2004). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005”, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad , the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.

  Simone Weil

  People, Personality, Architecture

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.13, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Light, Sea, Sound

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1829). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Complete in One Volume”, p.217

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• My business is to succeed, and I’m good at it. I create my Iliad by my actions, create it day by day.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Military, Succeed, Action

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• Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nordrove back Xerxes, nor christianized the world, nor abolished slavery.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Real, Greatness, World

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.73

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• Make room, Roman writers, make room for Greek writers; something greater than the Iliad is born.

  Propertius

  Greek, Rooms, Born

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• The Iliad represents no creed nor opinion, and we read it with a rare sense of freedom and irresponsibility, as if we trod on native ground, and were autochthones of the soil.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Religion, Soil, Opinion

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.294, Courier Corporation

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• For all the import and message of 'The Iliad,' it's ultimately a story that's meant to be heard, and the person hearing 'The Iliad' determines what it means.

  Denis O'Hare

  Mean, Stories, Hearing

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• I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad.

  Andre Dubus

  War, Writing, Men

  Andre Dubus (2010). “Broken Vessels: Essays”, p.67, Open Road Media

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• Socrates, in Plato, formulates ideas of order: the Iliad, like Shakespeare, knows that a violent disorder is a great order.

  Harold Bloom

  Plato, Order, Ideas

  Harold Bloom (2004). “Where Shall Wisdom be Found?”, Riverhead Books (Hardcover)

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• I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times.

  Philip Pullman

  Stories, Odyssey, Storytelling

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

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• There is but one art, to omit! Oh, if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knows how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Art, Men, Paper

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• I suppose it’s true that most great television, literature, and other forms of high art (and basic cable) benefit from a little hindsight. “M.A.S.H.” comes to mind. So does The Iliad.

  Kevin Bleyer

  Art, Mind, Television

  "Don’t Watch" by Kevin Bleyer, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 27, 2005.

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• Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Jobs, Book, Journey

  "A Defense of Nonsense". "The Defendant" by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

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• I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child's book about the Trojan War and decided that the Greeks were really a bunch of frauds with their tricky horses and the terrible things they did, stealing one another's wives, and so on, so at that very early age, I re-wrote the ending of the Iliad so that the Trojans won. And boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me. And thereafter, at frequent intervals, I would write something. It was really quite extraordinary. Never of very high merit, but the daringness of it was.

  James A. Michener

  Horse, Children, War

  "Storytelling Phenomenon". The Academy of Achievement interview, www.achievement.org. January 10, 1991.

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• In the power and splendor of the universe, inspiration waits for the millions to come. Man has only to strive for it. Poems greater than the Iliad, plays greater than Macbeth, stories more engaging than Don Quixote await their seeker and finder.

  John Masefield

  Inspiration, Men, Play

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• Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don't. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Teacher, Writing, Thinking

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• I have a confession to make. The love affair of my life has been with the Greek language. I have now reached the age when it has occurred to me that I may have read some books for the last time. I suddenly thought that there are books I cannot bear not to read again before I die. One that stands out a mile is Homer's Iliad.

  William Golding

  Book, Greek, Age

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• I was more worn out with the "Odyssey" than it was with the "Iliad." I mean, just comparing those two - you can see how it's changing, how the language of the "Iliad" is somehow monstrously new - and that language of the "Odyssey" is more comfortable, even for us.

  Anne Carson

  Mean, Two, Odyssey

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there's not much reason to.

  Elie Wiesel

  Thinking, Historical, Elements

  Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

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• Look at The Iliad, there's all this stuff about men loving children. The King of Sparta was the most brutal warrior of ancient Greece, and the only thing he liked to do was horse around with kids when he was back from slaughtering. One thing that feminism revealed is that being a distant patriarchal figure was not something men wanted to be. They want to be more involved in the lives of their children, and you can see that once they're allowed to have that connection, they crave it.

  Stephen Marche

  Horse, Kings, Children

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• My real purpose in telling middle-school students stories was to practice telling stories. And I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times. And the way I would justify it to the head teacher if he came in or to any parents who complained was, look, I'm telling these great stories because they're part of our cultural heritage. I did believe that.

  Philip Pullman

  Teacher, Real, Believe

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Song, Morning, Reading

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.275, Delphi Classics

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• It doesn't seem to me that anyone has discovered much that's new since the Iliad or the Odyssey.

  Raymond Queneau

  Odyssey, Seems

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