Achilles Patroclus Quotes

...all the grace I saw then was his own: simple, unadorned, glorious. ~ Madeline Miller

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

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

Individuals build empires because they want their names to echo through time. They build massive constructs of stone and steel so that their descendants will remember the people who created the world that they only live in. There were buildings on Earth that were thousands of years old, sometimes the only remaining evidence of empires that thought they would last forever. Hubris, the professor had called it. When people build, they are trying to make an aspiration physical. When they die, their intentions are buried with them. All that's left is the building.
[Ozymandias syndrome, anyone? Ed.] ~ James S.A. Corey

The second [argument about motion] is the so-called Achilles, and it amounts to this, that in a race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
Statement of the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox in the relation of the discrete to the continuous.; perhaps the earliest example of the reductio ad absurdum method of proof. ~ Zeno Of Elea

The arrows of love, like Achilles' sword, carry with them the remedy for the wounds they cause. ~ Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I fear that he might be my Achilles' heel. My Romeo to Juliet, my Jack to Rose, my Noah to Allie. ~ Anke Van Zweel

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end. ~ T. S. Eliot

But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy. There were some Italian visitors once, they were cheering us on, Brandon and myself, and they thought that Achilles and Hector had come back to life. So they said.'
But which is which? One dragged through the dust by the other ...
The king says, 'You turn your boy out beautifully. No nobleman could do more.'
'I don't want him to be Achilles,' he says, 'I only want him not to be flattened. ~ Hilary Mantel

What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?

That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star…

Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago.

I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble.

I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluste ~ Donna Tartt

Achilles replies that there is no equality of right between the
weak and the strong, for men have never made pacts with lions nor
have lambs and wolves ever shared the same desires. This was the law of the heroic gentes, based on the belief that the strong were of a different and more noble nature than the weak. Hence arose that law of war through which, by force of arms, the victors deprive the defeated of all their rights of natural liberty, so that the Romans took them
as slaves in place of material things. ~ Giambattista Vico

The Milesians did not model their women after Helen, reported to be the most beautiful woman of their times, & who, reportedly, had five husbands.Nor did they model their women after the Athenian housewives. Instead, Milesians celebrated womanly beauty from the physical endowments of two naked slave girls, Briseis & Chryseis-the bones of contention between Achilles & Agamemnon. Tradition cast Briseis as a tall brunette with a dark complexion & with a very distinguished appearance.Whilst Chryseis was described as fair, slender & small in stature.[INTRO] ~ Nicholas Chong

The author of IRR, who worshipped the King, said he had the valor of Hector, the magnanimity of Achilles, the liberality of Titus, the eloquence of Nestor, and the prudence of Ulysses; that he was the equal of Alexander and not inferior to Roland. But later historians tend to picture him rather as a remorseless, kindless villain. He was probably not a pleasant or a lovable character; none of the Plantagenets were. But a great soldier and a great commander he certainly was. He possessed that one quality without which nothing else in a commander counts: the determination to win. To this everything else - mercy, moderation, tact - was sacrificed. The avarice that so horrifies his critics was not simple greed: it was a quartermaster's greed for his army. His massacre of the prisoners was not simple cruelty, but a deliberate reminder to Saladin to keep faith with the terms agreed to, which that great opponent understood and respected. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Achilles might be a good papa to the family, but he was also a killer, and he never forgives.
Poke knew that, though. Bean warned her, and she knew it, but she chose Achilles for their papa anyway. Chose him and then died for it. She was like that Jesus that Helga preached about in her kitchen while they ate. She died for her people. And Achilles, he was like God. He made people pay for their sins no matter what they did.
The important thing is, stay on the good side of God. That's what Helga teaches, isn't it? Stay right with God.
I'll stay right with Achilles. I'll honor my papa, that's for sure, so I can stay alive until I'm old enough to go out on my own. ~ Orson Scott Card

Never on me let such wrath lay hold, as the wrath you cherish, you whose valor causes harm! ~ A.T. Murray

Stuckley drew back his sword with evident satisfaction. "She really is your Achilles' heel, isn't she Furey?"
"No." Lorcan said, preparing his own attack. "Not my Achilles' heel.The love of my life. And I'll do whatever it takes to protect her. ~ Justin Somper

And thus Bacchus turned Phyllis into his slave. She had become the lovely slave girl, Briseis, whom Achilles took as a war prize & whom Achilles had to yield to Agamemnon, his boss. Just as Phyllis was the prize that Eros found & whom Eros had to yield to Bacchus,his boss.[MMT] ~ Nicholas Chong

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

Dick got up to Zurich on less Achilles' heels than would be required to equip a centipede, but with plenty - the illusions of eternal strength and health, and of the essential goodness of people; illusions of a nation, the lies of generations of frontier mothers who had to croon falsely, that there were no wolves outside the cabin door. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

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

The wrists, the Achilles' tendons, and the neck are some of the weakest points of the human body, so a lot of people have phobias about those things. I can't deal with the undersides of wrists. ~ Kristin Gore

To reveal imprudently the spot where we are most sensitive and vulnerable is to invite a blow. The demigod Achilles admitted no one to his confidence. ~ Sophie Swetchine

Achilles only had an Achilles heel. I have an entire Achilles body. ~ Woody Allen

One of the major reasons why empaths and narcissists are attracted to each other is because of the empaths desire to help the narcissist, and the narcissist's desire to take advantage of the empath's emotional support. As I mentioned before, pity is our Achilles heel, and we often mistake it for the experience of love. ~ Aletheia Luna

Listen, I don't care what you say about my race, creed, or religion, Fatty, but don't tell me I'm not sensitive to beauty. That's my Achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I'm limp, by God. Anything. Peter Pan. Even before the curtain goes up at Peter Pan I'm a goddamn puddle of tears. ~ J.D. Salinger

It's all about how bad you want to come back. (The Achilles' is) not tight anymore. I'm like a wild dog about getting back on the field. I'm hungrier than I've ever been. ~ Takeo Spikes

Thanks for the good times. Thank you for being so generous with what you have withheld. Thank you for being the snake in my grass, the thorn in my side, the pain in my ass, the knife in my back, the wrench in my works, the fly in my ointment. My Achilles' heart. Caught in a whirlpool without an anchor, relaxing into it, calmly going under for one of many last times. ~ Carrie Fisher

If I were Achilles I would put my foot in a f**k off block of concrete! ~ Eddie Izzard

Growth is the mantra of our society because the economy can't remain healthy without growth.Impregnable monopolies aside (and these are few), profits are both the hallmark of capitalism and its Achilles heel, for no business can permanently maintain its prices much above its costs. There is only one way in which profits can be perpetuated; a business-or an entire economy-must grow. ~ Robert Heilbroner

The ship's boards were still sticky with new resin. We leaned over the railing to wave our last farewell, the sun-warm wood pressed against our bellies. The sailors heaved up the anchor, square and chalky with barnacles, and loosened the sails. Then they took their seats at the oars that fringed the boat like eyelashes, waiting for the count. The drums began to beat, and the oars lifted and fell, taking us to Troy. ~ Madeline Miller

The heel of Achilles ~ William Strunk Jr.

Books were his Achilles heel. She ~ Stephen King

Europe's enduring localism, which had been the weak link in Christendom, became in turn the Achilles heel of the dynastic state. ~ Mark Greengrass