C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Homer

Accept these grateful tears! for thee they flow,

For thee, that ever felt another’s woe!

All, soon or late, are doom’d that path to tread.

And endless are the modes of speech, and far

Extends from side to side the field of words.

And every eye

Gaz’d as before some brother of the sky.

And rest at last where souls unbodied dwell,

In ever-flowing meads of Asphodel.

And taste

The melancholy joys of evils pass’d,

For he who much has suffer’d, much will know.

Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends,

And swell’d with tempests on the ship descends;

White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud

Howl o’er the masts, and sing through every shroud:

Pale, trembling, tir’d, the sailors freeze with fears;

And instant death on every wave appears.

But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast,

For gentle ways are best.

But strong of limb

And swift of foot misfortune is, and, far

Outstripping all, comes first to every land,

And there wreaks evil on mankind, which prayers

Do afterwards redress.

For when two

Join in the same adventure, one perceives

Before the other how they ought to act;

While one alone, however prompt, resolves

More tardily and with a weaker will.

Forgetful youth! but know, the Power above

With ease can save each object of His love;

Wide as His will, extends His boundless grace.

He ceas’d; but left so pleasing on their ear

His voice, that list’ning still they seem’d to hear.

He slept an iron sleep,—

Slain fighting for his country.

I hate

To tell again a tale once fully told.

Jove lifts the golden balances that show

The fates of mortal men, and things below.

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,

And the good suffers while the bad prevails.

Know from the bounteous heavens all riches flow;

And what man gives, the gods by man bestow.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,—

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;

Another race the following spring supplies;

They fall successive; and successive rise.

No living man can send me to the shades

Before my time; no man of woman born,

Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.

O friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong,

And let no warrior in the heat of fight

Do what may bring him shame in others’ eyes;

For more of those who shrink from shame are safe

Than fall in battle, while with those who flee

Is neither glory nor reprieve from death.

O friends, be men; so act that none may feel

Ashamed to meet the eyes of other men.

Think each one of his children and his wife,

His home, his parents, living yet or dead.

For them, the absent ones, I supplicate,

And bid you rally here, and scorn to fly.

O Thou, whose certain eye foresees

The fix’d event of fate’s remote decrees.

O woman, woman, when to ill thy mind

Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.

Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,

Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.

Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,

The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god.

The chance of war

Is equal, and the slayer oft is slain.

The ruins of himself! now worn away

With age, yet still majestic in decay.

The rule

Of the many is not well. One must be chief

In war and one the king.

The son of Saturn gave

The nod with his dark brows. The ambrosial curls

Upon the Sovereign One’s immortal head

Were shaken, and with them the mighty mount,

Olympus trembled.

Then Sleep and Death, two twins of winged race,

Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace.

Thou wilt lament

Hereafter, when the evil shall be done

And shall admit no cure.

’Tis true; ’tis certain; man though dead retains

Part of himself; the immortal mind remains.

To heal divisions, to relieve the oppress’d,

In virtue rich; in blessing others, bless’d.

True friendship’s laws are by this rule express’d,

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

What mighty woes

To thy imperial race from woman rose.

Whatever day

Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.

Who dares think one thing, and another tell,

My heart detests him as the gates of hell.

Without a sign his sword the brave man draws,

And asks no omen but his country’s cause.

Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow

For other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.

A decent boldness ever meets with friends.

A generous heart repairs a slanderous tongue.

A heaven of charms divine Nausicaa lay.

Achilles absent, was Achilles still.

Ah, youth! forever dear, forever kind.

And for our country ’tis a bliss to die.

And o’er the past oblivion stretch her wing.

And what he greatly thought he nobly dared.

And what so tedious as a twice-told tale.

Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.

Content to follow when we lead the way.

Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.

Even the fool is wise after the event.

Far from the gay cities, and the ways of men.

For never, never wicked man was wise.

For too much rest itself becomes a pain.

He, from whose lips divine persuasion flows.

Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall.

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

I live an idle burden to the ground.

If not yet lost to all the sense of shame.

Ill fares the State where many masters rule; let one be lord, one king supreme.

In youth and beauty wisdom is but rare!

Labor conquers all things.

Light is the task when many share the toil.

No season now for calm, familiar talk.

Noblest minds are easiest bent.

Not all Apollo’s Pythian treasures hold can bribe the poor possession of a day.

One rogue leads another.

Reproach is infinite, and knows no end.

Shame greatly hurts or greatly helps mankind.

She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.

Short is my date, but deathless my renown.

Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.

So ends the bloody business of the day.

Soft as some song divine, thy story flows.

Such is the chance of war.

Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids, unwakeful, most pleasant, the nearest like death.

The bitter dregs of Fortune’s cup to drain.

The force of union conquers all.

The Grecian ladies counted their age from their marriage, not their birth.

The matchless Ganymede, divinely fair.

The mildest manners and the gentlest heart.

The mildest manners with the bravest mind.

The sex is ever to a soldier kind.

The ugliest man was he who came to Troy; with squinting eyes and one distorted foot.

The windy satisfaction of the tongue.

These riches are posses’d, but not enjoy’d.

Too much rest itself becomes a pain.

Who hearkens to the gods, the gods give ear.

Will cast the spear and leave the rest to Jove.

Wine leads to folly, making even the wise to laugh immoderately, to dance, and to utter what had better have been kept silent.

Words sweet as honey from his lips distill’d.

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