Quotes from work
Iliad

Homér Original title Ἰλιάς

The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.

“Of all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.”

Homér Iliad

XVIII. 130–131 (tr. Robert Fagles). Cf. Iliad, XVII. 446–447.
Samuel Butler's translation:
: Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth.
Robert Fitzgerald's translation:
: Of mortal creatures, all that breathe and move,
earth bears none frailer than mankind.
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Variant: Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.
Source: The Iliad

“Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than of war.”

Homér Iliad

A misquotation http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-August/092648.html of:

Πάντων μὲν κόρος ἐστὶ καὶ ὕπνου καὶ φιλότητος
μολπῆς τε γλυκερῆς καὶ ἀμύμονος ὀρχηθμοῖο,
τῶν πέρ τις καὶ μᾶλλον ἐέλδεται ἐξ ἔρον εἷναι
ἢ πολέμου· Τρῶες δὲ μάχης ἀκόρητοι ἔασιν.

Men get
Their fill of all things, of sleep and love, sweet song
And flawless dancing, and most men like these things
Much better than war. Only Trojans are always
Thirsty for blood!

Iliad, XIII, 636–639 (tr. Ennis Rees)

The misquotation implies that an overweening love of war was the norm, whereas the real quote decries the Trojans as inhumane for keeping the war going.
Misattributed

“Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be more lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

Homér Iliad

Variant: Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
Source: The Iliad

“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.”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

“Smiling through tears.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 484 (tr. Lord Derby); of Andromache.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“But Zeus does not bring to accomplishment all thoughts in men's minds.”

Homér Iliad

XVIII. 328 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Now always be the best, my boy, the bravest,
and hold your head up high above the others.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 208 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before—
I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son.”

Homér Iliad

XXIV. 505–506 (tr. Robert Fagles); Priam to Achilles.
Richmond Lattimore's translation:
: I have gone through what no other mortal on earth has gone through;
I put my lips to the hands of the man who has killed my children.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“And some day let them say of him:
'He is better by far than his father.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 479 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“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.”

Homér Iliad

VI. 488–489 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Who on earth could blame them? Ah, no wonder
the men of Troy and Argives under arms have suffered
years of agony all for her, for such a woman.
Beauty, terrible beauty!
A deathless goddess—so she strikes our eyes!”

Homér Iliad

III. 156–158 (tr. Robert Fagles); of Helen.
Richmond Lattimore's translation:
: Surely there is no blame on Trojans and strong-greaved Achaians
if for long time they suffer hardship for a woman like this one.
Terrible is the likeness of her face to immortal goddesses.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“For a man will not have strength to fight his way forward all day
long until the sun goes down if he is starved for food.”

Homér Iliad

XIX. 162–163 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“So now I meet my doom. Well let me die—
but not without struggle, not without glory, no,
in some great clash of arms that even men to come
will hear of down the years!”

Homér Iliad

XXII. 303 (tr. Robert Fagles); spoken by Hector.
Richmond Lattimore's translation:
: But now my death is upon me.
Let me at least not die without a struggle, inglorious,
but do some big thing first, that men to come shall know of it.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Always it is, that the hearts in the younger men are frivolous,
but when an elder man is among them, he looks behind him
and in front, so that all comes out far better for both sides.”

Homér Iliad

III. 108–110 (tr. Richmond Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“Rosy-fingered Dawn.”

Homér Iliad

I. 477 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“On valour's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch who trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame.”

Homér Iliad

XV. 563–564 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you’d run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!”

Homér Iliad

Source: The Iliad

“No shame in running,
fleeing disaster, even in pitch darkness.
Better to flee from death than feel its grip.”

Homér Iliad

XIV. 80–81 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Richmond Lattimore's translation:
: There is no shame in running, even by night, from disaster.
The man does better who runs from disaster than he who is caught by it.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)