Home › Authors › Lucian
Lucian Quotes
125–190 Greece
Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – c. 190) was a satirist and philosopher, born at Samosata in the Syrian province of the Roman Empire (now in Turkey), but in later life resident in Athens. His works are written in the Attic dialect of Greek.
Greece Essayists Novelists Philosophers Satirists Random Lucian quote
15 quotes
When once a dog has taken to gnawing your shoes, you can never break him of the habit.
Ignorance is a dreadful thing and has caused no end of damage to the human race.
In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable.
If you will carefuly consider the affairs of mankind you will find that they are not worth either hopes or fears.
The effort only shifted me from the frying-pan into the fire.
If the brave should fly, he who pursues must be braver.
Criticism is twofold: that which teaches us what we are to choose, and that which teaches us what to avoid.
Everything has a beauty peculiar to itself; but if you put one instead of another, the most beautiful becomes ugly, because it is not in its proper place.
History, when she adds pleasure to utility, may attract more admirers; though as long as she is possessed of that greatest of perfections, truth, she need not be anxious concerning beauty.
A king has many ears and many eyes.
The body of the history is only a long narrative, and as such it must go on with a soft and even motion, alike in every part, so that nothing should stand too forward, or retreat too far behind.
Whatever we knock against and get hold of we shall be taking for the thing we want, because the truth is hidden from us. Even if a mere piece of luck brings us straight to it, we shall have no grounded conviction of our success; there are so many similar objects, all claiming to be the real thing.
The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened. [. . .] For history, I say again, has this and this only for its own: if a man will start upon it, he must sacrifice to no God but Truth; he must neglect all else; his sole rule and unerring guide is this—to think not of those who are listening to him now, but of the yet unborn who shall seek his converse.
I say, therefore, that he who would write history well must be possessed of these two principal qualifications, a fine understanding and a good style: one is the gift of nature, and cannot be taught; the other may be acquired by frequent exercise, perpetual labour and an emulation of the ancients.
A boy of five years old serene and gay,
Topics Lucian is quoted on