These Achilles quotes will inspire you. Achilles, in Greek mythology, son of the mortal Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, and the Nereid, or the sea nymph, Thetis.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging Achilles quotes, Achilles sayings, and Achilles proverbs.
Famous Achilles Quotes
- “The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” ~ Brad Pitt
- “And overpowered by memory Both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely For man-killing Hector, throbbing, crouching Before Achilles’ feet as Achilles wept himself, Now for his father, now for Patroclus once again And their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.” ~ Homer
- “For violence, like Achilles’ lance, can heal the wounds it has inflicted.” ~ Frantz Fanon
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“What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.” ~ Thomas Browne
- “In questioning initially whether I am a great investor, I open the door to question whether other similarly esteemed public icons like Bill Miller are as well. It seems, perhaps, that the longer and longer you keep at it in this business the more and more time you have to expose your Achilles heel – wherever and whatever that might be.” ~ Bill Gross
- “If I had to think of what I would do different in my whole career, it’s that I never would have picked up a beer, bottle of vodka. That definitely changed my life. That is an Achilles’ heel for me.” ~ Jayson Williams
- “Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know – even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction – than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.” ~ Isaac Asimov
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“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” ~ Homer
- “I’ll tell you a secret. Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” ~ David Benioff
- “The two things that can hurt you are if you need money or if you need fame. Those are the things that can be your Achilles’ heel. But if you don’t need money and you don’t need fame, then you’re free.” ~ Dana Carvey
- “Achilles was like a rock star of his day so it made sense to have Brad Pitt playing him.” ~ Wolfgang Petersen
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“All interesting heroes have an Achilles heel.” ~ Jo Nesbo
- “Our dependence on foreign energy sources is our Achilles heel, not just in the realm of diplomacy, but in terms of our future as the world’s economic leader.” ~ Judy Biggert
- “Our workers comp debt is the Achilles heel of our state’s economy, and I firmly believe that in order to create more good jobs in West Virginia this system must be fixed and it must be fixed now. We cannot afford to wait even one more minute.” ~ Joe Manchin
- “Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.” ~ Homer
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“I think they went with the idea that people know the story pretty much- knowing that he’s going to take her when she’s going to go with him. Also, the movie is really focused on Achilles and Hector and their battles.” ~ Diane Kruger
- “The Domain Name Server (DNS) is the Achilles heel of the Web. The important thing is that it’s managed responsibly.” ~ Tim Berners-Lee
- “The Achilles Heel of the Americas was the lack of cultural confidence typical of new settlers.” ~ Arthur Erickson
- “Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn’t.” ~ Joe Biden
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“Achilles absent was Achilles still!” ~ Homer
- “A man’s life breath cannot come back again– no raiders in force, no trading brings it back, once it slips through a man’s clenched teeth.” ~ Homer
- “Alexander received more bravery of mind by the pattern of Achilles, than by hearing the definition of fortitude.” ~ Philip Sidney
- “Achilles glared at him and answered, “Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind but hate each other out and out an through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall” ~ Homer
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“Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven; think on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more pitiable” ~ Homer
- “Nowadays people are born to find fault. When they look at Achilles, they see only his heel.” ~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
- “Like Achilles, the hero who forgot his heel, or like Icarus who, flying close to the sun, forgot that his wings were made of wax, we should be wary when triumphant ideas seem unassailable, for then there is all the more reason to predict their downfall.” ~ Dwight Longenecker
- “Achilles too staggered a moment. He felt his soul change color. Blood pooled at his feet, and though he continued to stand upright and triumphant in the sun, his spirit set off on its own downward path and approached the borders of an unknown region.” ~ David Malouf
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“One of my biggest Achilles’ heels has been my ego. And if I, Kanye West, the very person, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone.” ~ Kanye West
- “Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.” ~ Homer
- “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?” ~ Plutarch
- “Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.” ~ Jonathan Swift
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“Ah, beer, my one weakness. My Achille’s heel, if you will.” ~ Homer
- “The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying.” ~ Thomas C Foster
- “I’m not known as a singer, but in life, I like to do things that are a bit beyond my reach to keep myself from slipping. I find that technology has made it so that we don’t need to have a memory system, and as I get older I want to do things that challenge me. What could be more challenging than doing this show with a knee that’s been replaced, after tearing my Achilles heel with a baker’s cyst on the back of my knee? And then I have to try and dance!” ~ George Hamilton
- “On past records, I usually did start with a story or an idea for a song and then write around it, but on Achilles’ Heel I would just start writing and try to let the song and my sub-conscience determine the direction. which is a goofy way of saying I tried not to decide beforehand what the song and or the characters would do and be like.” ~ David Bazan
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“An Achilles, if it doesn’t heal right, there could be a danger of not playing again.” ~ Kevin Pietersen
- “He ran his hand up and down his left Achilles tendon. Very tender; better pay attention to it and back off if it gets any worse. Maybe ice it. The old Injury Evasion Fandango. Did it ever end?” ~ John L. Parker Jr.
- “It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles whom we knew.” ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
- “You know, you can’t see or touch and isn’t embodied. But they were all fallible, the Gods. And they would kind of rise and fall. You know, they all, like Achilles, Icarus, you know, they all had their high points and their low points.” ~ Rachel Weisz
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“I ruptured my plantaris muscle. It runs through the calf and goes down the side of your achilles and stretches right to the heel.” ~ Lee Westwood
- “Alexander, of whom men tell many legends, lived by his own. Achilles must have Patroklos. He might love his Briseis, but Patroklos was the friend till death. At their tombs in Troy, Alexander and Hephaistion had sacrificed together. Wound Patroklos and Achilles will have your blood.” ~ Mary Renault , Achilles quotes about death
- “In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn’t trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don’t claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters – these two men, in this time, and in this place” ~ Madeline Miller
- “If I were Achilles I would put my foot in a f**k off block of concrete!” ~ Eddie Izzard
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“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.” ~ Jimmy Page
- “Keep unscathed the good name; keep out of peril the honor without which even your battered old soldier who is hobbling into his grave on half-pay and a wooden leg would not change with Achilles.” ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton , Achilles quotes about honor
- “When we consider the weak and nerveless periods of some literary men, who perchance in feet and inches come up to the standard oftheir race, and are not deficient in girth also, we are amazed at the immense sacrifice of thews and sinews. What! these proportions, these bones,–and this their work! Hands which could have felled an ox have hewed this fragile matter which would not have tasked a lady’s fingers! Can this be a stalwart man’s work, who has a marrow in his back and a tendon Achilles in his heel?” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “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.” ~ Karen Elson
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“I damaged my Achilles tendon, so I can’t run.” ~ Jason Isaacs
- “I think our dependence on foreign oil is a real problem, potential Achilles heel, and we have to do something about it.” ~ Condoleezza Rice
- “What we were trying to do was take the notion of Greek tragedy, of fated and doomed people, and instead of these Olympian gods, indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no reason — instead of those guys whipping it on Oedipus or Achilles, it’s the postmodern institutions . . . those are the indifferent gods.” ~ David Simon , Achilles quotes about gods
- “It should be the aim of grand strategy to discover and pierce the Achilles’ heel of the opposing government’s power to make war. Strategy, in turn, should seek to penetrate a joint in the harness of the opposing forces. To apply one’s strength where the opponent is strong weakens oneself disproportionately to the effect attained. To strike with strong effect, one must strike at weakness.” ~ B. H. Liddell Hart
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“A great industrial nation may conquer the world in the span of a single life, but its Achilles’ heel is time. Its children, what of them?” ~ Charles Lindbergh
- “But if you caught my informant,’ said Achilles, ‘why in the world would Chamrajnagar—or Graff, if it was him—launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they’d risk a shuttle and it’s crew just to catch me? I find that quite… flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain.” ~ Orson Scott Card
- “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.” ~ Gil Blake
- “Annabeth frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. But why were you visiting –” Her eyes widened. “Hermes said you bear the curse of Achilles. Hestia said the same thing. Did you . . . did you bathe in the River Styx?” “Don’t change the subject.” “Percy! Did you or not?” “Um . . .maybe a little.” ~ Rick Riordan
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“Achilles, without his heel, you wouldn’t even know his name today.” ~ Stan Lee
- “When Luke had descended into the River Styx, he would’ve had to focus on something important that would hold him to his mortal life. Otherwise he would’ve dissolved. I had seen Annabeth, and I had a feeling he had too. He had pictured that scene Hestia showed me—of himself in the good old days with Thalia and Annabeth, when he promised they would be a family. Hurting Annabeth in battle had shocked him into remembering that promise. It had allowed his mortal conscience to take over again, and defeat Kronos. His weak spot—his Achilles heel—had saved us all” ~ Rick Riordan
- “I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child’s book about the Trojan War and decided that the Greeks were really a bunch of frauds with their tricky horses and the terrible things they did, stealing one another’s wives, and so on, so at that very early age, I re-wrote the ending of the Iliad so that the Trojans won. And boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me. And thereafter, at frequent intervals, I would write something. It was really quite extraordinary. Never of very high merit, but the daringness of it was.” ~ James A. Michener
- “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
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“We read about how Ajax and Achilles will die for each other, but very little about the friendship of women.” ~ Toni Morrison
- “Achilles only had an Achilles heel, I have an entire Achilles body.” ~ Woody Allen
- “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.” ~ J. D. Salinger
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“Christ on a cracker. You raped Achilles!” ~ P. C. Cast
- “Percy Jackson,” Hermes said, “because you have taken on the curse of Achilles, I must spare you. You are in the hands of the Fates now. But you will never speak to me like that again. You have no idea how much I have sacrificed, how much—” His voice broke, and he shrank back to human size. “My son, my greatest pride . . . my poor May . . .” He sounded so devastated I didn’t know what to say. One minute he was ready to vaporize us. Now he looked like he needed a hug.” ~ Rick Riordan
- “Anybody who severs their own Achilles tendon takes blood thinners to induce a hospital stay or beats themselves with their fists hurts themselves as much, if not more, than they benefit from the attention they derive from their actions. Con artists usually benefit from misleading others without sacrificing anything themselves. All my girls have sacrificed plenty.” ~ Janice Erlbaum
Achilles was the bravest, most handsome, and greatest warrior of the army of Agamemnon in the Trojan War.
