Best 69 quotes in «achilles quotes» category

I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I understood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whore-mongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not far off the mark.

I think: this is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: how long do we have?

It is always as it was between Achilles and Homer: one person has the experience, the sensation, the other describes it. A real writer only gives words to the affects and experiences of others; he is an artist in divining a great deal from the little that he has felt. Artist are by no means people of great passion, but they frequently present themselves as such, unconsciously sensing that others give greater credence to the passions they portray if the artist's own life testifies to his experience in this area. We need only let ourselves go, not control ourselves, give free play to our wrath or our desire, and the whole world immediately cries: how passionate he is! But there really is something significant in a deeply gnawing passion that consumes and often swallows up an individual: whoever experiences this surely does not describe it in dramas, music, or novels. Artists are frequently unbridled individuals, insofar, that is, as they are not artists: but that is something different.

One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles’ heel of armies, police and bureaucracies.

I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all with one consent praise new-born gauds, Though they are made and moulded of things past, And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object.

My first sight of the fabled warrior was a surprise. He was not a mighty-thewed giant, like Ajax. His body was not broad and powerful, as Odysseos'. He seemed small, almost boyish, his bare arms and legs slim and virtually hairless. His chin was shaved clean, and the ringlets of his long black hair were tied up in a silver chain. He wore a splendid white silk tunic, bordered with a purple key design, cinched at the waist with a belt of interlocking gold crescents... His face was the greatest shock. Ugly, almost to the point of being grotesque. Narrow beady eyes, lips curled in a perpetual snarl, a sharp hook of a nose, skin pocked and cratered... A small ugly boy born to be a king... A young man possessed with fire to silence the laughter, to stifle the taunting. His slim arms and legs were iron-hard, knotted with muscle. His dark eyes were absolutely humourless. There was no doubt in my mind that he could outfight Odysseos or even powerful Ajax on sheer willpower alone.

Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only.

Peleus acknowledged this. "Yet other boys will be envious that you have chosen such a one. What will you tell them?" "I will tell them nothing." The answer came with no hesitation, clear and crisp. "It is not for them to say what I will do.

Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.

- 'I've never had a thing for homicidal charmers before.' - 'But now you do?' - 'Apparently.' -I muttered, knowing he could feel my raicing heartbeat under his chest. - 'Well, if it helps, I've never had a thing for beautiful, deceptively brave, innocent charmers before.' - 'And now you do?' His grin widened, taking on a wolfish look. - 'Definitely

The heat rose up my neck, wrapped fingers over my face. His hair fell around me, and I could smell nothing but him. The grain of his lips seemed to rest a hairsbreadth from mine.

This is how I think of us, when I remember our nights at Troy: Achilles and I beside each other, Phoinix smiling and Automedon stuttering through the punch lines of jokes, and Briseis with her secret eyes and quick, spilling laughter.

This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all.

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.

We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both.

well A of all youre being condecending. what did I say? it wasn't what you said it was HOW you said it and B of all I quit war forever so that's when I'm coming back when I un-forever quit war, which is never, so never

We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence.

what will you do if you go home? i dunno stuff grows out of the ground if you put stuff in it so maybe ill do that farming? yeah go home and put stuff in the ground and no one will take the girls i like and i hope you all die in this stupid war you don't mean that you don't mean your face what? leave me alone

When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.

You're a strange kind of boy," said Achilles. "I was not tested for normality before I was entrusted with this mission," said Suriyawong. "But I have no doubt that I would fail such a test.

An achilles, if it doesn't heal right, there could be a danger of not playing again.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.

The same touchy sense of personal honor that is at the root of Achilles' wrath still governs relations between man and man in modern Greece; Greek society still fosters in the individual a fierce sense of his privileges, no matter how small, of his rights, no matter how confined, of his personal worth, no matter how low. And to defend it, he will stop, like Achilles, at nothing.

We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.

what is this name remembering day

Who was he if not destined for fame?

You've injured me, Farshooter, most deadly of the gods; And I'd punish you, if I had the power.

Achilles was like a rock star of his day so it made sense to have Brad Pitt playing him.

Achilles, without his heel, you wouldn't even know his name today.

Achilles only had an Achilles heel, I have an entire Achilles body.

Ah, beer, my one weakness. My Achille's heel, if you will.

All interesting heroes have an Achilles heel.

At Achilles tomb, O fortunate youth, to have found Homer as the herald of your glory!

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

First of all, most traders don't have a winning strategy. Second, even among those traders who do, many don't follow their strategy. Trading puts pressure on weaker human traits and seems to seek out each individual's Achilles' heel.

Anybody who has political ambition has an Achilles heel.

For violence, like Achilles' lance, can heal the wounds it has inflicted.

I ruptured my plantaris muscle. It runs through the calf and goes down the side of your achilles and stretches right to the heel.

I guess the solo from 'Achilles Last Stand' is in the same tradition as the solo from 'Stairway to Heaven'...it is on that level to me.

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles whom we knew.

Themistocles being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homer, said, "Which would you rather be, a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors?

Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn't.

There comes a point where certain things are becoming my Achilles heel; you know when you start repeating yourself and saying the same anecdotes over and over again you start slowly hating yourself.

Love, why have you sought the horde of spearsmen, why the tent Achilles pitched beside the river-ford?

Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.

The Achilles Heel of the Americas was the lack of cultural confidence typical of new settlers.

We read about how Ajax and Achilles will die for each other, but very little about the friendship of women.