“No more entreating of me, you dog, by knees or parents.”
                                        
                                        XXII. 345 (tr. R. Lattimore); Achilles to Hector. 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
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.
“No more entreating of me, you dog, by knees or parents.”
                                        
                                        XXII. 345 (tr. R. Lattimore); Achilles to Hector. 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
“Victory passes back and forth between men.”
                                        
                                        VI. 339 (tr. R. Lattimore); Paris contemplates the fickleness of victory as he prepares to go into battle. 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”
                                        
                                        X. 173–174 (tr. Samuel Butler). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
                                
                                    “In form of Stentor of the brazen voice,
Whose shout was as the shout of fifty men.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            
                                        
                                        V. 785–786 (tr. Lord Derby). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
“But the gods give to mortals not everything at the same time.”
                                        
                                        IV. 320 (tr. R. Lattimore). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
                                
                                    “If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,
my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            
                                        
                                        IX. 413 (tr. Robert Fagles); spoken by Achilles. 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
“Helios, Sun above us, you who see all, hear all things!”
                                        
                                        III. 277 (tr. Robert Fagles). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
“I'll fling a spear myself and leave the rest to Zeus.”
                                        
                                        XVII. 515 (tr. Robert Fagles). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
                                
                                    “He in the turning dust lay
mightily in his might, his horsemanship all forgotten.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            
                                        
                                        XVI. 775–776 (tr. R. Lattimore). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
                                    
“The proof of battle is action, proof of words, debate.”
                                        
                                        XVI. 630 (tr. Robert Fagles). 
Iliad (c. 750 BC)