Quotes from Mary Renault

It is the mark of little men to like only what they know; one step beyond, and they feel the black cold of chaos.

We shall either find what we are seeking, or free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.

It is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting.

Clouds of black birds rose up wailing and screaming, like the thoughts of my heart.

What is honour? In Athens it is one thing, in Sparta another; and among the Medes it is something else again. But go where you will, there is no land where the dead return across the river.

I wanted someone to follow, I wanted him to be brave. But he wants to be brave for me; and no one can do that.

Often I wished for someone to share my mind with; but their hearts were in little things, they would have thought me a dreamer, and I had to plan alone.

Great anguish lies in wait for those who long too greatly.

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.

WITHOUT LAUGHTER, WHAT MAN of sense could endure either politics or war?

In grief more than in joy, man longs to know that the universe turns around him.

Alexander could transmit imagination as some other could transmit lust.

Hephaistion had known for many ages that if a god should offer him one gift in all his lifetime, he would choose this. Joy hit him like a lightning-bolt.

Am I beautiful? It is for you alone. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live.

All men seek esteem; the best by lifting themselves, which is hard to do, the rest by shoving others down, which is much easier.

His mouth felt cold to mine ; he neither opened his eyes, nor spoke, nor moved. I said in my heart, "Too late I am here within your cloak, I who never of my own will would have denied you anything. Time and death and change are unforgiving, and love lost in the time of youth never returns again.

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. How many have tried, because of him? Not only those I have seen; there will be men to come. Those who look in mankind only for their own littleness, and make them believe in that, kill more than he ever will in all his wars.

People like me are blamed for curiosity; having lost part of our lives, we are apt to fill the gap from the lives of others. In this I am like the rest, and make no pretences.

Is he weeping?" said the one with the softest heart.

Men would be as gods, if they had foreknowledge.

You cannot step twice into the same river, said Herakleitos. People in the past were not just like us; to pretend so is an evasion and a betrayal, turning our back on them so as to be easy among familiar things.

The lovers of the innocent must protect them above all from the knowledge of their own cruelty.

Do I grudge my lord the herb that will heal him, because another gathers it? No, let him be healed.

I said, 'We have dreamed, dear friend. Another time, we might awaken. Let it be a dream forgotten at morning.' That seemed a better way of saying it than, 'Never remind me of this, for fear I should stick a knife in you.