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
beautiful fashion men
Each man in his life honors, and imitates as well as he can, that god to whose choir he belonged, while he is uncorrupted in his first incarnation here; and in the fashion he has thus learned, he bears himself to his beloved as well as to the rest. So, then, each chooses from among the beautiful a love conforming to his kind, and then, as if his chosen were his god, he sets him up and robes him for worship.
men voice secret
Tell a man what he may not sing and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret -- there, I have seen is slavery.
truth men half
Half the world's troubles come from men not being trained to resent a fallacy as much as an insult.
believe men forever
Do not believe that others will die, not you.... I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.
men blood together
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.
sleep men evil
In all men is evil sleeping; the good man is he who will not awaken it, in himself or in other men.
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.
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.
regret believe men
It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that.
best buts english-novelist money
Money buts many things... The best of which is freedom.
hate excellence
To hate excellence is to hate the gods.
enemy weapons pretence
Never destroy without thought your enemy's pretences; they are usually your best weapon against him.
hatred excellence desire
What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?
courage tyrants virtue
But courage without conduct is the virtue of a robber, or a tyrant.