Biography
Quotes on Biography
One of the new terrors of death.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735) English writer, physician
A great American need not fear the hand of his assassin; his real demise begins only when a friend like Mr. Sorensen closes the mouth of his tomb with a stone.
Nigel Dennis (b. 1912) British author reviewing Kennedy by Theodore C. Sorensen
Every great man now has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish author
Biography should be written by an acute enemy.
Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930) British Conservative politician, prime minister
The first thing to be done by a biographer in estimating character is to examine the stubs of the victim’s cheque-books.
Silas W. Mitchell (1829-1914) American physician, author
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) British author
A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish author
Read no history; nothing but biography, for that is life without theory. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English prime minister Biography is a region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.
Philip Guedalla (1889-1944) British biographer, historian
Biography is to give a man some kind of shape after his death,
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) British novelist
Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.
Horace (65-8 Bc) Latin poet
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) Where breath most breathes, — even in the mouths of men,
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, poet
