Mary Renault
Mary Renault
Mary Renault, born Eileen Mary Challans, was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece. In addition to vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus, Socrates, Plato and Alexander the Great, she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth4 September 1905
real lying fall
The perpetual stream of human nature is formed into ever-changing shallows, eddies, falls and pools by the land over which it passes. Perhaps the only real value of history lies in considering this endlessly varied play between the essence and the accidents.
kings lord found
I thought, There goes my lord, whom I was born to follow. I have found a King. And, I said to myself, looking after him as he walked away, I will have him, if I die for it.
Money buys many things... The best of which is freedom.
longing aspiration all-things
Longing performs all things
perfect vases owners
But it is not for the perfect vase or the polished gem to choose their owners.
lying inspiring-love together
One might have supposed that the true act of love was to lie together and talk.
men easier esteem
All men seek esteem; the best by lifting themselves, which is hard to do, the rest by shoving others down, which is much easier.
fate dark dark-places
Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.
life hatred soul
In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.
heart clouds rose
Clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart.
men thinking action
A man is at his youngest when he thinks he is a man, not yet realizing that his actions must show it.
horse fall grief
Change is the sum of the universe, and what is of nature ought not to be feared. But one gives it hostages, and lays one's grief upon the gods. Sokrates is free, and would have taught me freedom. But I have yoked the immortal horse that draws the chariot with a horse of earth; and when the one falls, both are entangled in the traces.
determined amount
The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.
rivers steps greek-philosophy
Everything is change; and you cannot step twice into the same river.