“Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.”
“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
“A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time”
“There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.”
“For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother”
“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;
I have seen worse sights than this.”
“Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death”
“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.”
“[I]t is the wine that leads me on,
the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing
at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the
man to dancing... it even
tempts him to blurt out stories
better never told.”
“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say
that we devise their misery. But they
themselves- in their depravity- design
grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.”
“Each man delights in the work that suits him best.”
“some things you will think of yourself,...some things God will put into your mind”
“The blade itself incites to deeds of violence.”
“There will be killing till the score is paid.”
“Now from his breast into the eyes the ache
of longing mounted, and he wept at last,
his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,
longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer
spent in rough water where his ship went down
under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.
Few men can keep alive through a big serf
to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches
in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:
and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,
her white arms round him pressed as though forever.”
“Few sons are like their fathers--most are worse, few better.”
“Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.”
“So, the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once, not build and brains and flowing speech to all. One man may fail to impress us with his looks but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm, and men look on with delight when he speaks out. Never faltering, filled with winning self-control, he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze at him like a god when he walks through the streets. Another man may look like a deathless one on high but there's not a bit of grace to crown his words. Just like you, my fine, handsome friend.”
“Immortals are never alien to one another.”
“Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep,
even so I will endure…
For already have I suffered full much,
and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war.
Let this be added to the tale of those.”
“Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured.”
“These nights are endless, and a man can sleep through them,
or he can enjoy listening to stories, and you have no need
to go to bed before it is time. Too much sleep is only
a bore. And of the others, any one whose heart and spirit
urge him can go outside and sleep, and then, when the dawn shows,
breakfast first, then go out to tend the swine of our master.
But we two, sitting here in the shelter, eating and drinking,
shall entertain each other remembering and retelling
our sad sorrows. For afterwards a man who has suffered
much and wandered much has pleasure out of his sorrows.”
“Aries in his many fits knows no favorites.”
“down from his brow
she ran his curls
like thick hyacinth clusters
full of blooms”
“Come then, put away your sword in its sheath, and let us two go up into my bed so that, lying together in the bed of love, we may then have faith and trust in each other.”
“[B]ut it is only what happens, when they die, to all mortals.
The sinews no longer hold the flesh and the bones together,
and once the spirit has let the white bones, all the rest
of the body is made subject to the fire's strong fury,
but the soul flitters out like a dream and flies away.”
“By hook or by crook this peril too shall be something that we remember”
“There was a time when you trusted me with your life!”
“And there was a time when you used your brain instead of blindly following orders,”
“...I asked Ochto what in the name of all that was sacred he thought he was doing.
"Helping you," said Dirnes.
"Why?"
They put the soldier down, and Ochto straightened to look me in the eye. "Because I know nothing about kings and princes, but I know men.”
“He smiled. “Normal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Nick was waiting for him.
Gabriel hesitated. He wished those text messages had come with some kind of sign, whether Nick was pissed or exasperated or just completely done with him. Hell, a freaking emoticon would have been helpful.
His own room sat pitch-dark at the opposite end of the hallway. A black hole. Gabriel eased around the creaky spot in the floor and slid past his twin's room. Once in his own, he flung his duffel bag onto the ground and shut the door, closing the dark around himself. He sighed and kicked his shoes into the well of blackness under the bed. Maybe Nick hadn't heard him. Maybe he thought he was still out in the car.
"You are so predictable."
Gabriel swore and fumbled for the light switch.
Nick was straddling his desk chair backward, his arms folded on the backrest.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Gabriel snapped. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"
His twin shrugged. Because I knew you'd walk right past my room.”
“Life has taught me that to fly, you must first accept the possibility of falling.”
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