Odysseus Quotes

• Like Odysseus, the President looked wiser when he was seated.

  John Maynard Keynes

  President, Wiser

  'The Economic Consequences of the Peace' (1919) ch. 3 (on Woodrow Wilson)

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• Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries yes but they themselves with their own reckless ways compound their pains beyond their proper share.

  Homer

  Pain, Way, Odyssey

  Homer (1997). “The Odyssey”, p.48, Penguin

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• For they imagined as they wished--that it was a wild shot,/ an unintended killing--fools, not to comprehend/ they were already in the grip of death./ But glaring under his brows Odysseus answered: 'You yellow dogs, you thought I'd never make it/ home from the land of Troy. You took my house to plunder,/ twisted my maids to serve your beds. You dared/ bid for my wife while I was still alive./ Contempt was all you had for the gods who rule wide heaven,/ contempt for what men say of you hereafter./ Your last hour has come. You die in blood.

  Homer

  Dog, Home, Men

  Homer, Robert Fitzgerald (1961). “The Odyssey”, Anchor Books

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• I too have been in the underworld, as was Odysseus, and I will often be there again; not only sheep have I sacrificed so as to beable to speak with a few dead souls, but neither have I spared my own blood as well.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sheep, Often Is, Blood

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• One should part from life as Odysseus parted from Nausicaa-blessing it rather than in love with it.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Death, Blessing, Should

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.273, Modern Library

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• You'll come to learn a great deal if you study the Insignificant in depth.

  Odysseas Elytis

  Depth, Study, Little Things

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• I'd rather be like Odysseus than someone who was handed everything.

  Mindy Kaling

  "Mindy Kaling On Refusing To Be An Outsider And Sexism On Set". www.wbur.org. October 16, 2014.

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• On these sands and in the clefts of the rocks, in the depths of the sea, in the creaking of the pines, you'll spy secret footprints and catch far-off voices from the homecoming celebration. This land still longs for Odysseus.

  Homer

  Home, Rocks, Sea

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• The true artist plays mad with his soul, labors at the very lip of the volcano, but remembers and clings to his purpose, which is as strong as the dream. He is not someone possessed, like Cassandra, but a passionate, easily tempted explorer who fully intends to get home again, like Odysseus.

  John Gardner

  Dream, Strong, Home

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• What if The Odyssey has no more validity or authenticity than one of the other stories that you hear Odysseus telling? Whoever created The Odyssey was incredibly hip to stuff that we think, in our post-modernist, post-structuralist era, we're uncovering for the first time; but we aren't.

  Daniel Mendelsohn

  Thinking, What If, Odyssey

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• What's amazing to me is how many of the issues facing women in the ancient world still linger today. Take Odysseus' wife, Penelope, a brilliant, resourceful woman who ends up in a terrible situation: in her husband's absence, she is being held hostage in her own home by men who claim to be courting her. She tries to make them leave, but because she's a woman they refuse, blaming their bad behavior on her desirability.

  Madeline Miller

  Husband, Home, Men

  Source: www.glamour.com

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• As I look back, I feel a touch of pride at my younger self's dedication to literature, which gave him the strength of mind to resist the blandishments of the enemies of promise. The sirens of ad-land sang sweetly and seductively, but I thought of Odysseus lashing himself to the mast of his ship, and somehow stayed on course.

  Salman Rushdie

  Pride, Dedication, Land

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• I think that was E.T.'s central appeal, personally. E.T. is this metaphorical journey, this strange Odysseus from another world, who just wants to go home. Obviously, home must've been better!

  Frederick Lenz

  Home, Journey, Thinking

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• To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Men, Sea, Space

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• She sent him a warm and gentle wind, and Lord Odysseus was happy as he set his sails to catch the breeze. He sat beside the steering oar and used his skill to steer the raft.

  Homer

  Wind, Sea, Skills

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• SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Life, Ocean, Musical

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.215, University of Georgia Press

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• I find that readers are very interested in how things are translated. I just turned in the first part of this father-son Odyssey, and there is a part when I digress and explain that the name Odysseus is related to the word for pain. Like "-odyne" in the word "anodyne," pain. It's the same, "-odyne" as in Odysseus. He's the man who both suffers endlessly, in trying to get home, but also inflicts a lot of suffering on everyone he visits.

  Daniel Mendelsohn

  Pain, Home, Men

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Odysseus inclines his head. "True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spread his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?" He smiles. "Perhaps one day even I will be famous. Perhaps more famous than you.

  Madeline Miller

  Memories, Men, Hands

  Madeline Miller (2012). “The Song of Achilles”, p.347, A&C Black

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• Though men in the mass forget the origins of their need, they still bring wolfhounds into city apartments, where dog and man both sit brooding in wistful discomfort. The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature's cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: "Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster.

  Loren Eiseley

  Dog, Men, Cities

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• It's the quintessential Greek sport: harmonious, competitive, agonizing, nautical, and above all, intelligent. It combines Odysseus's brains and brawn and love of the sea with the tactical precision of the Spartan pikeman.

  Barry S. Strauss

  Sports, Intelligent, Sea

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• But you, Achilles,/ There is not a man in the world more blest than you--/ There never has been, never will be one./ Time was, when you were alive, we Argives/ honored you as a god, and now down here, I see/ You Lord it over the dead in all your power./ So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.’ I reassured the ghost, but he broke out protesting,/ ‘No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!/ By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man--/ Some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

  Homer

  Grieving, Winning, Men

  Homer (2008). “Odyssey, Homer”, Spark Publishing Group

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• Homeric mind is ingenuity, practical intelligence. There is no Rodin-like deep thinking, no mathematical or philosophical speculation. Odysseus thinks with his hands.

  Camille Paglia

  Philosophical, Thinking, Hands

  Camille Paglia (1990). “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson”, Vintage

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• Across the gulf of centuries, the blind smile of Homer is turned upon our age. Along the echoing corridors of time, the roar of the rockets merges now with the creak of the wind-taut rigging. For somewhere in the world today, still unconscious of his destiny, walks the boy who will be the first Odysseus of the Age of Space.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Future, Destiny, Boys

  Arthur C. Clarke (2011). “By Space Possessed”, p.4, Hachette UK

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• There is yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus' slave-girls, is still property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.

  Aldo Leopold

  Girl, Growing Up, Animal

  Aldo Leopold (1992). “The River of the Mother of God: and other Essays by Aldo Leopold”, p.182, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• Granted, in order to give selflessly, one often starts giving selfishly. As Tiresias said to Odysseus: "Honey ... you don't get through hell in a hurry"

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Yoga, Order

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