Samuel Butler

"we must judge men not so much by what they do, as by what they make us feel that they have it in them to do. If a man has done enough either in painting, music or the affairs of life, to make me feel that I might trust him in an emergency he has done enough

Patroclus did as his dear comrade had bidden him

Will not the Achaeans mock at us and say that we have sent one to champion us who is fair to see but who has neither wit nor courage?

the words came driving from his deep chest like winter snow before the wind, then there was none to touch him, and no man thought further of what he looked like.

but the gods will not give us everything at one and the same time.

the shades of death, with fate that no man can withstand

Would that the earth might open her jaws and swallow him

Could I but see him go down into the house of Hades, my heart would forget its heaviness.

would that a whirlwind had caught me up on the day my mother brought me forth, and had borne me to some mountain or to the waves of the roaring sea that should have swept me away

but if a man's hour is come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when he has once been born