Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
One anecdote of a man is worth a volume of biography.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
Biography is: a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels—teaching high living, high thinking, and energetic actions for their own and the world’s good.
—Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) British Author, Reformer
My advice is to consult the lives of other men, as one would a looking-glass, and from thence fetch examples for imitation.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
A life that is worth writing at all, is worth writing minutely and truthfully.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
Memoirs are the backstairs of history.
—George Meredith (1828–1909) British Novelist, Poet, Critic
Biography is the most universally pleasant and profitable of all reading.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
If those gentlemen would let me alone I should be much obliged to them. I would say, as Shakespeare would say… “Sweet Friend, for Jesus sake forbear.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Most biographies are of little worth.—They are panegyrics, not lives.—The object is, not to let down the hero; and consequently what is most human, most genuine, most characteristic in his history, is excluded.—No department of literature is so false as biography.
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain; turned into cash, they are laid out again.
—Thomas Hood (1799–1845) English Poet, Humorist
Great men have often the shortest biographies.—Their real life is in their books or deeds.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Now the Poet cannot die, nor leave his music as of old, but round him ere he scarce be cold begins the scandal and the cry.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–89) American Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic
I have not much interest in anyone’s personal history after the tenth year, not even my own. Whatever one was going to be was all prepared before that.
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
History can be frmed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost forever.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Of all studies, the most delightful and useful is biography.—The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them.—No history was ever true; but lives which I have read, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, the utility of truth.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
Biography, especially of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study.—Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967) French Novelist, Biographer
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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