Alexander the Great Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

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.

Alexander the Great
Your ancestors came to Macedonia and the rest of Hellas [Greece] and did us great harm, though we had done them no prior injury. I have been appointed leader of the Greeks, and wanting to punish the Persians I have come to Asia, which I took from you.
Letter to Persian king Darius III of Persia in response to a truce plea

Alexander the Great
What an excellent horse do they lose, for want of address and boldness to manage him! … I could manage this horse better than others do.
Statement upon seeing Bucephalas being led away as useless and beyond training

Alexander the Great
On his gifts for the services of others:
I consider not what Parmenio should receive, but what Alexander should give.

Alexander the Great
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?

Alexander the Great
For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.

Alexander the Great
Last words:
I am dying with the help of too many physicians.

Alexander the Great
Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal.

Alexander the Great
If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes.
After Diogenes of Sinope who was lying in the sun, responded to a query by Alexander asking if he could do anything for him with a reply requesting that he stop blocking his sunlight.

Alexander the Great
Holy shadows of the dead, I'm not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people, to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same visions.
Addressing the dead Hellenes (the Athenean and Thebean Greeks) of the Battle of Chaeronea

Alexander the Great
At Achilles' tomb:
O fortunate youth, to have found Homer as the herald of your glory!

Alexander the Great
Youths of the Pellaians and of the Macedonians and of the Hellenic Amphictiony and of the Lakedaimonians and of the Corinthians… and of all the Hellenic peoples, join your fellow-soldiers and entrust yourselves to me, so that we can move against the barbarians and liberate ourselves from the Persian bondage, for as Greeks we should not be slaves to barbarians.

Alexander the Great
Shall I pass by and leave you lying there because of the expedition you led against Greece, or shall I set you up again because of your magnanimity and your virtues in other respects?
Addressing to a fallen statue of Xerxes the Great

Alexander the Great
Know ye not that the end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered?

Alexander the Great
Dinocrates, I appreciate your design as excellent in composition, and I am delighted with it, but I apprehend that anybody who should found a city in that spot would be censured for bad judgement. For as a newborn babe cannot be nourished without the nurse's milk, nor conducted to the approaches that lead to growth in life, so a city cannot thrive without fields and the fruits thereof pouring into its walls.

Alexander the Great