Great people, famous people, successful people, always leave behind a legacy that inspires others, often for ages to come. These legacies are often left behind in form of words that came out of the mouth of these men. Below you will find many words uttered by Alexander that have found their way from ancient history to the modern world.
“I do not steal victory.”
“There is nothing impossible to him who will try”
“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.”
“Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.”
“Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters.”
“Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal.”
“Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?”
“….we should not be slaves to barbarians.”
“Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.”
Since Alexander lived such a long time back, and became a legend, there are many sayings that have been attributed to him in some historical accounts, but in some they aren’t. Below are the quotes, which at times are said to have been spoken by Alexander, yet have disputed origins.
“I should prefer an army of stags led by a lion, to an army of lions led by a stag.”
One will find many variations of the quote mentioned above.
“There are no more worlds to conquer!”
There also have been words said about Alexander that have made history.
“The ancient writers tell of the peculiar “melting” glance of his eyes, or of the way in which, as Plutarch says, his body seemed to glow. They are evidently trying to describe something which they found it difficult to express.”
- R. Burn,
Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Empire
“When he says that in that day all his thoughts perish, or flow away, perhaps under this expression he censures the madness of princes in setting no bounds to their hopes and desires, and scaling the very heavens in their ambition, like the insane Alexander of Macedon, who, upon hearing that there were other worlds, wept that he had not yet conquered one, although soon after the funeral urn sufficed him.”
John Calvin,
In his interpretation of Psalm 146,
On The Book of Psalms (1557),
As translated by Rev. James Anderson (1849)