STOKER, Bram - Dracula

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Johnathan Harker: I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams.

Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 1

Johnathan Harker: The women looked pretty, except when you got near them.
Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 1

Coachman: You cannot deceive me, my friend. I know too much, and my horses are swift.
Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 1

Johnathan Harker: This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining.
Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 1

Johnathan Harker: I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import.” Bram Stoker, Dracula, chapter 1

Johnathan Harker: I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place.

Stoker, Dracula, chapter 2

Johnathan Harker: As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 2

Johnathan Harker: "Do you wish me to stay so long?" I asked, for my heart grew cold at the thought.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 3

Johnathan Harker: I quite understood. My only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 3

Johnathan Harker: Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say, "My tablets! Quick, my tablets! `tis meet that I put it down," etc., For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 3

Johnathan Harker: To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, for some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 4

Johnathan Harker: Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that might be useful to me were I once outside the castle.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 4

Lucy Westenra: I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind. Arthur says that every day.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 5

Lucy Westenra: He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 5

Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 5

Lucy Westenra: My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 5

Quincy P. Morris: It's better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don't cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover, it's more selfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 5

Mr. Swales: Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an' trying' to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was,
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mina Murray: Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mina Murray: I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mr. Swales: "Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! An' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above,
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mina Murray & Mr. Swales:

"But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?"

"Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!"

"To please their relatives, I suppose."

"To please their relatives, you suppose!" This he said with intense scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?"

Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mr. Swales: And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where she was.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Dr. John Seward: To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it shall be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss.

Dr. John Seward: Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours, but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! Work!
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mina Murray: Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mina Murray: Another week gone by, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 6

Mina Murray: Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 8

Mina Murray: The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see. I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy's condition.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 8

Sis Agatha, St. Joseph Hospital: He has had some fearful shock, so says our doctor, and in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful, of wolves and poison and blood, of ghosts and demons, and I fear to say of what. Be careful of him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come. The traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was nothing on him, nothing that anyone could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the station master there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 8

Mina Murray: I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him,
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 9

Johnathan Harker: You know I had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. … Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 9

Mina Murray: I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealing wax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each other, that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 9

Lucy Westenra: Perhaps it is the change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, for I can remember nothing. But I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and worn out.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 9

You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 9

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow. That is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 10

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: But now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood so bright than yours!
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 10

Dr. John Seward: For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral exhaustion.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 10

Dr. John Seward: I tried to sleep, but I could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 11

Dr. John Seward: Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry tonight. I am too miserable, too low spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself,
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 12

Dr. John Seward: "Ah well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!"

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity, "Not so, alas! Not so. It is only the beginning!"
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 12

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?"
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 13

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 14

Dr. John Seward: For a while sheer anger mastered me.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: …why take so long to tell so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, no so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no!"
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the `no' of it.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: If it not be true, then proof will be relief. At worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread. Yet every dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Dr. John Seward: My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Arthur Holmwood:  …if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once, though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 15

Dr. John Seward: If ever a face meant death, if looks could kill, we saw it at that moment.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 16

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world. For all that die from the preying of the Undead become themselves Undead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 16

Mina Murray: We need have no secrets amongst us. Working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 17

Dr. John Seward: She has man's brain, a brain that a man should have were he much gifted, and a woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 18

Mina Murray: I wonder what has come over me today. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morning. . .I, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear, the dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is just one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn...
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 19

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: He have done this alone, all alone! From a ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him. He that can smile at death, as we know him. Who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh! If such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 24

Dr. John Seward: It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 24

Dr. John Seward: We were all wild with excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd's. I know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 25

Dr. John Seward: Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a will-o'-the-wisp to man.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 25

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 25

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing: My legs are not so quick to run as once. And I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service. I can fight in other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 26

And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 26

Quincy P. Morris: "I am only too happy to have been of service! Oh, God!" he cried suddenly, struggling to a sitting posture and pointing to me. "It was worth for this to die!"
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 27

Johnathan Harker: This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care. Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.
Stoker, Dracula, chapter 27

Characters (had difficulty keeping track)

Johnathan Harker: travels to Transylvania, Mina’s fiancée

Mina Murray: Johnathan’s fiancée

Lucy Westenra: Mina’s best friend, Arthur’s fiancée

Arthur Holmwood: Lucy’s fiancée, son and heir of Lord Godalming. Also goes by the name Godalming when his father dies.

Mrs. Westenra: Lucy’s ill mother

Dr. John Seward: insane asylum administrator, Van Helsing’s pupil, lives close to Dracula, Lucy rejects his marriage proposal

Renfield: insane, consumes flies, spiders, birds

Quincy P. Morris: well educated, but uses American slang to amuse Lucy, Lucy rejects his marriage proposal

Dr. Professor Abraham Van Helsing, of Amsterdam: science professor of John Seward, knows vampire folklore, knows as much about obscure diseases, willing to work outside of traditional medicine

Mr. Swales: retired, aged seaman

WHARTON, Edith - ETHAN FROME

WHARTON, Edith - ETHAN FROME

I had had an uneasy sense that the New England of fiction bore little- except a vague botanical and dialectical- resemblance to the harsh and beautiful land as I had seen it.

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, Introduction

There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, prologue

But the Fromes are tough. Ethan'll likely touch a hundred. (Reach the age of 100)
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, prologue

It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with detachment.

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, prologue

Sickness and trouble: that's what Ethan's had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping.
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, prologue

"I've always set down the worst of mother's trouble to that. When she got the rheumatism so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate most days to see him. But after the trains begun running nobody ever come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died."

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, prologue

"We never got away- how should you?" seemed to be written on every headstone; and whenever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a shiver: "I shall just go on living here till I join them." But now all desire for change had vanished, and the sight of the little enclosure gave him a warm sense of continuance and stability.

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, chapter 2

Zenobia's fault-finding was of the silent kind, but not the less penetrating for that.
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, chapter 3

Sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when in desperation her son asked her why she didn't "say something," she would lift a finger and answer: "Because I'm listening";

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, chapter 4

After the funeral, when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter...
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, chapter 4

“I'm fixing up a little house for Ned and Ruth when they're married. I'm glad to do it for 'em, but it costs." His look appealed to Ethan for sympathy. "The young people like things nice. You know how it is yourself: it's not so long ago since you fixed up your own place for Zeena."

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, chapter 4

He started down the road toward their house, but at the end of a few yards he pulled up sharply, the blood in his face. For the first time, in the light of the words he had just heard, he saw what he was about to do. He was planning to take advantage of the Hales' sympathy to obtain money from them on false pretences. That was a plain statement of the cloudy purpose which had driven him in headlong to Starkfield.

With the sudden perception of the point to which his madness had carried him, the madness fell and he saw his life before him as it was. He was a poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his desertion would leave alone and destitute; and even if he had had the heart to desert her he could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied him.

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, chapter 8

HUGO, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

HUGO, VICTOR: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

But, comrade, just because you annoyed us this morning is no reason why we shouldn’t hang you tonight.”

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 3, pg. 35

I don’t see why poets should not be classed as one of you. Aesop was a vagabond, Homer a beggar, Mercury a thief.”

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 3, pg. 35

The adventure partook of enchantment. He began seriously to take himself for the hero of some fairy tale. Now and then he would fix his eyes on the holes in his coat, as if to satisfy himself of his identity.

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 4, pg. 39

“What will the world come to,” said another, “if that is the way they make children nowadays? It’s a really abominable monster, and ought to be drowned or burned.”
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 5, pg. 46

It was mortifying to him that this sanctuary, once edified by the name of Frollo, should not be scandalized by it.

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 6, pg. 55

He had, it was said, tasted all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and had at last bitten at the forbidden fruit;

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 6, pg. 55

The day after a public festival was a day of annoyance for everybody, but most especially for the official whose duty it was to clear away the holiday’s leftover filth, material and figurative, and to sit at the trial of offenders at the Grand Châtelet.

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 6, pg. 57

“You’ll come to no good end.”
“The beginning at least will have been good.”
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 10, pg. 95

In the Middle Ages, when a building was complete there was almost as much of it underground as above. A palace, or fortress, or church always had a double basement, unless it stood upon piles like Notre-Dame.
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 13, pg. 112

I frighten you, I see. I’m ugly enough, God knows. Don’t look at me, just listen.
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 15, pg. 132

Oh! Why am I not of stone, like you?
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 15, pg. 132

“I’d like nothing better, Dom Cloude, but perhaps I would get my own neck into an ugly noose!”
“What difference would that make?”

“What difference! Master, I have just begun two new books.”
Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 16, pg. 141

“Besides, what attaches you so strongly to life?”
“Why, a thousand things. The fresh air, the blue sky, morning and evening, the warm sunshine, and the moonlight, my good friends, good-natured damsels, books to write, and I know not what besides. And then I have the good fortune to pass all my days from morning to night with a man of genius – myself- which is exceedingly agreeable.”

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 16, pg. 141

There is all I ever loved!

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books, Volume 4, chapter 19, pg. 180

PLUTARCH –The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander

PLUTARCH –The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander

356-323 BC

Aristoxenus in his Memoirs tells us that a most agreeable odour exhaled from his skin, and that his breath and body all over was so fragrant as to perfume the clothes which he wore next to him; the cause of which might probably be the hot and adjust temperament of his body. For sweet smells, Theophrastus conceives, are produced by the concoction of moist humours by heat, which is the reason that those part of the world which are driest and most burnt up afford spices of the best kind and in the greatest quantity; for the heat of the sun exhaust all the superfluous moisture which lies in the surface of bodies, ready to generate putrefaction.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 542

While he was yet very young, he entertained the ambassadors from the King of Persia, in the absence of his father, and entering much into conversation with them, gained so much upon them by his affability, and the questions he asked them, which were far from being childish or trifling (for he inquired of them the length of the ways, the nature of the road into inner Asia, the character of their king, how he carried himself to his enemies, and what forces he was able to bring into the field),  that they were struck with admiration of him, and looked upon the ability so much famed of Philip to be nothing in comparison with the forwardness and high purpose that appeared thus early in his son.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 542

Philonicus the Thessalian brought the horse Bucephalus to Philip, offering to sell him for thirteen talents; but when they went into the field to try him, they found him so very vicious and unmanageable, that he reared up when they endeavoured to mount him, and would not so much as endure the voice of any of Philip’s attendance. Upon which, as they were leading him away as wholly useless and untractable, Alexander, who stood by, said, “What an excellent horse do they lose for want of address and boldness to manage him!” Philip at first took no notice of what he said; but when he heard him repeat the same things several time, and saw he was much vexed to see the horse sent away, “Do you reproach, “ he said to him,” those who are older than yourself, as if you knew more and were better able to manage him that they? “I could manage this horse,” replied he,” Better than others do.” “And if you do not,” said Philip, “what will you forfeit for you rashness?” “I will pay,” answered Alexander, “the whole price of the horse.”

At this the whole company fell a-laughing; and as soon as the wager was settled amongst them he immediately ran to the horse, and taking hold of the bridle, turned him directly towards the sun,  having it seems, observed that he was disturbed at and afraid of the motion of  his own shadow; then letting him go forward a little, still keeping the reins in his hands, and stroking him gently when he found him begin to grow eager and fiery, he let fall his upper garment softly, and with one nimble leap securely mounted him, and when he was seated, by little and little drew in the bridle and curbed him without either striking or spurring him. Presently, when he found him free from all rebelliousness, and only impatient for the course, he let him go at full speed , inciting him now with a commanding voice, and urging him also with his heel. Philip and his friends looked on at first in silence and anxiety for the result, till seeing him turn at the end of his career, and come back rejoicing and triumphing for what he had performed, they all burst out into acclamations of applause; and his father shedding tears, it is said, for joy, kissed him as he came down from his horse, and in his transport said, “O my son, look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 542

Alexander to Aristotle, greeting. You have not done well to publish your books of oral doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open to all? 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. Farewell.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 543

Onesicritus informs us that he constantly laid Homer’s Iliad according to the copy corrected by Aristotle, called the casket copy, with his dagger under his pillow, declaring that he esteemed it a perfect portable treasure of all military virtue and knowledge. When he was in the upper Asia, being destitute of other books, he ordered Harpalus to send him some; who furnished him with Philistus’s History, a great many of the plays of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus, and some dithyrambic odes, composed by Telestes and Philoxenus.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 544

For a while he loved and cherished Aristotle no less, as he was wont to say himself, that if he had been his father, giving this reason for it, that as he had received life from the one, so the other had taught him to live well. But afterwards, upon some mistrust of him, yet not so great as to make him do him any hurt, his familiarity and friendly kindness to him abated so much of s former force and affectionateness, as to make it evident h was alienated from him.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 544

  

However, his violent thirst after and passion for learning, which were once implanted, still grew up with him,
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 544

While Philip went on his expedition against the Byzantines, he left Alexander, then sixteen years old, his lieutenant in Macedonia, committing the charge of his seal to him; who, not to sit idle, reduced the rebellious Maedi, and having taken their chief town by storm, drove out the barbarous inhabitants, and planting a colony of several nations in their room, called the place after his own name, Alexandropolis.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 544

But Philip, as soon as he was made acquainted with this transaction, went to his son’s apartment, taking with him, Philotas, the son of Parmenio, one of Alexander’s intimate friends and companions, and there reproved him severely, and reproached him bitterly, that he should be so degenerate, and unworthy of the power he was to leave him, as to desire the alliance of a mean Carian, who was at best but the slave of a barbarous prince. Nor did this satisfy his resentment, for he wrote to the Corinthians to send Thessalus to him in chains, and banished Harpalus, Nearchus, Erigyius, and Ptolemy, his son’s friends and favourites, whom Alexander afterwards recalled and raised to great honour and preferment.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 545

Alexander was but twenty years old when his father was murdered, and succeeded to a kingdom, beset on all sides with great dangers and rancorous enemies.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 545

Among the other calamities that befell the city, it happened that some Thracian solider, having broken into the house of a matron of high character and repute, named Timoclea, their captain, after he had used violence with her, to satisfy his avarice as well as lust, asked her if she knew of any money concealed; to which she readily answered she did, and bade him follow her into a garden, where she showed him a well, into which, she told him, upon the taking of the city, she had thrown what she had of most value. The greedy Thracian presently stooping down to view the place where he thought the treasure lay, she came behind him and pushed him into the well, and then flung great stones in upon him, till she had killed him.
After which, when the soldiers led her away bound to Alexander, her very mien and gait showed her to be a woman of dignity, and of a mind no less elevated, not betraying the least sign of fear or astonishment. And when the king asked her who she was, “I am,” she said, “the sister of Theagenes, who fought the battle of Chaeronea with your father Philip, and fell there in command for the liberty of Greece.” Alexander was so surprised, both at what she had done and what she said, that he could not choose but give her and her children their freedom to go wither they pleased.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 545

Certain it is, too, that in the aftertime he often repented of his severity to the Thebans, and his remorse had such influence on his temper as to make him ever after less rigorous to all others.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 546

…many public ministers and philosophers came from all parts to visit him and congratulated him on his election, but contrary to his expectation, Diogenes of Sinope, who then was living at Corinth, thought so little of him, that instead of coming to compliment him, he never so much as stirred out of the suburb called the cranium, where Alexander found him lying alone in the sun. When he saw so much company near him, he raised himself a little, and vouchsafed to look upon Alexander, and when he kindly asked him whether he wanted anything, “Yes,” said he, “I would have you stand from between me and the sun.” Alexander was so struck at this answer, and surprised at the greatness of the man, who had taken so little notice of him, that as he went away he told his followers, who were laughing at the moroseness of the philosopher, that if he were not Alexander, he would choose to be Diogenes.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 546

And Alexander, being easily known by his buckler, and a large plume of white feathers on each side of his helmet, was attacked on all sides, yet escaped wounding, though his cuirass was pierced by a javelin in one of the joinings.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 547

All the plate and purple garments, and other things of the same kind that he took from the Persians, expect a very small quantity which he reserved for himself, he sent as a present to his mother.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 548

But Alexander, esteeming it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies, sought no intimacy with any one of them, nor indeed with any other woman before marriage, except Barsine, Memnon’s widow, who was taken prisoner at Damascus. She had been instructed in the Grecian learning, as of a gentle temper, and by her father, Artabazus, royally descended. These good qualities, added to the solicitation and encouragement of Parmenio, as Aristobulus tells us, made him the more willing to attach himself to so agreeable and illustrious a woman.
Of the rest of the female captives, though remarkably handsome and well proportioned, he took no further noticed that to say jestingly
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 550

When Philoxenus, his lieutenant on the seacoast, wrote to him to know if he would buy two young boys of great beauty, whom one Theodorus, a Tarentine, had to sell, he was so offended that he often expostulated with his friends what baseness Philoxenus had ever observed in him that he should presume to make him such a reproachful offer. And he immediately wrote him a very sharp letter, telling him Theodorus and his merchandise might go with his good-will to destruction. Nor was he less severe to Hagnon, who sent him word he would buy a Corinthian youth named Crobylus, as a present for him.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 550

And hearing that Damon and Timotheus, two of Parmenio’s Macedonian soldiers, had abused the wives of some strangers who were in his pay, he wrote to Parmenio, charging him strictly, if he found them guilty, to put them to death, as wild beasts that were only made for the mischief of mankind. In the same letter he added, that he had not so much as seen or desired to see the wife of Darius, no, nor suffered anybody to speak of her beauty before him.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 550

For Leonidas, it seems, standing by him one day while he was sacrificing, and seeing him take both his hands full of incense to throw into the fire, told him it became him to be more sparing in his offerings, and not to be so profuse till he was master of the countries which those sweet gums and spices come from. So Alexander now wrote to him, saying, “We have sent you abundance of myrrh and frankincense, that for the future you may not be stingy to the gods.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 552

Among the sayings of one Psammon, a philosopher, whom he heard in Egypt, he heard in Egypt, he most approved of this, that all men are governed by God, because in everything, that which is chief and commands is divine. But what he pronounced himself upon this subject was even more like a philosopher, for he said, God was the common father of us all, but more particularly of the best of us.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 554

However, afterwards being wounded with an arrow, and feeling much pain, he turned to those about him, and told them, “This, my friends, is real flowing blood, not ichor – such as immortal gods are wont to shed.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 554

It came to pass that in the month of Boedromion, about the beginning of the feast of Mysteries at Athens, there was an eclipse of the moon, the eleventh night, after which the two armies being now in view of one another, Darius kept his men in arms, and by torchlight took a general view of them. But Alexander, while his soldiers slept, spent the night before

his tent with his diviner, Aristander, performing certain mysterious  ceremonies, and sacrifices to the god Fear.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 556

To this he gave the celebrated answer, "I will not steal a victory," which though some at the time thought a boyish and inconsiderate speech, as if he played with danger, others, however, regarded as an evidence that he confided in his present condition, and acted on a true judgment of the future, not wishing to leave Darius, in case he worsted, the pretext of

trying his fortune again, which he might suppose himself to have, if he could impute his overthrow to the disadvantage of the night, as he did before to the mountains, the narrow passages, and the sea.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 556

After they were gone from him with this answer, he laid himself down in his tenet and slept the rest of the night more soundly than was usual with him, to the astonishment of the commander, who came to him early in the morning, and were fain themselves to give order that the soldiers should breakfast. But at last, time not giving them leave to wait any longer, Parmenio went to his bedside, and called him twice or thrice by his name til he waked
him, and then asked him how it was possible, when he was to fight the most important battle of all, he could sleep as soundly as if he were already victorious. "And are we not so, indeed," replied Alexander, smiling, "since we are at last relieved from the trouble of wandering in pursuit of Darius through a wide and wasted country, hoping in vain that he would fight us?"

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 556

Darius now seeing all was lost, that those who were placed in front to defend him were broken and beat upon him, that he could not turn or disengage his chariot without great difficulty, the wheels being clogged and entangled among the dead bodies, which lay in such heaps as not only stopped, but almost covered the horses, and made them rear and grow so unruly that the frightened charioteer could govern them no longer, in this
extremity was glad to quit his chariot, and his arms, and mounting, it is said, upon a mare that had been taken from her foal, betook himself to flight.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 557

...and in Ecbatana was much surprised at the sight of the place where fire issues in a continuous stream, like  a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth, and the stream of naphtha, which, not far from this spot flows out so abundantly as to form a sort of lake. This naphtha, in other respects resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire, that before it touches the flame it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it and often inflame the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the power
and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings with little drops of it, and when it was almost night, stood at the further end with torches, which being applied to the moistened places, the first at once taking fire, instantly, as quick as a man could think of it, it caught from one end to another, in such a manner that the whole street was one continued flame.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 557

Another time, as one of the common soldiers was driving a mule laden with some of the king's treasure, the beast grew tired, and the soldier took it upon his own back, and began to march with it til Alexander seeing the man so overcharged asked what was the matter; and when he was informed, just as he was ready to lay down his burden for weariness, "Do not faint now," said
he to him, "but finish the journey, and carry what you have there to your own tent for yourself."

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 559

From hence he marched into Parthia, where not having much to do, he first put on the barbaric dress, perhaps with the view of making the work of civilising them the easier, as nothing gains more upon men than a conformity to their fashions and customs.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 562

But Clitus for all this would not give over, desiring Alexander to speak out if he had anything more to say, or else why did he invite men who were freeborn and accustomed to speak their minds openly without restraint to sup with him. He had better live and converse with barbarians and slaves who would not scruple to bow the knee to his Persian girdle and his white tunic.
Which words so provoked Alexander that, not able to suppress his anger any longer, he threw one of the apples that lay upon the table ant him, and hit him, and then looked about for his sword. But Aristophanes, one of the lifeguard, had hid that out of the way, and others came ab out him and besought him, but in vain;

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 565

Clitus still refusing to yield, was with much trouble force by his friends out of the room. But he came in again immediately at another door, very irreverently and confidently singing the verses out of Euripides’s Andromache, In Greece, Alas! How ill things ordered are!

Upon this, at last, Alexander, snatching a spear from one of the soldiers, met Clitus as he was coming forward and was putting by the curtain that hung before the door, and ran him through the body. He fell at once with a cry and a groan.
Upon which the king’s anger immediately vanishing, he came perfectly to himself, and when he saw his friends about him all in a profound silence, he pulled the speak out of the body, and would have thrust it into his own throat, if the guards had not held his hands, and by main force carried him away into his chamber, where all that night and the next day he wept bitterly, till being quite spent with lamenting and exclaiming, he lay, as it were, speechless, only fetching deep sighs. His friends apprehending some harm from his silence, broke into the room, but he took no notice of a what any of them said, till Aristander putting him in mind of the vision he had seen concerning Clitus, and the prodigy that followed, as if all had come to pass by an unavoidable fatality, he then seemed to moderate his grief.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 565

…as he was breaking up the ground near the river Oxus, to set up the royal pavilion, discovered a spring of a fat oily liquor, which, after the top was taken off, ran pure, clear oil, without any difference either of taste or smell, having exactly the same smoothness and brightness, and that too, in a country where no olives grew. The water, indeed, of the river Oxus, is said to be the smoothest of the feeling of all waters, and to leave a gloss on the skins of those who bathe themselves in it.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 568

The first being asked which he thought the most numerous, the dead or the living, answered, “The living, because those who are dead are not at all.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Of the second, he desired to know whether the earth or the sea produced the largest beasts; who told him, “The earth, for the sea is but a part of it.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

His question to the third was, “Which is the cunningest of beasts?” “That,” said he, “which men have not yet found out.” Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

He bade the fourth tell him what argument he used to Sabbas to persuade him to revolt. “No other,” said he, “than that he should either live or die nobly,”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Of the fifth he ask, which was the eldest, night or day. The philosopher replied, “Day was eldest, by one day at least.” But perceiving Alexander not well satisfied with that account, he added that he ought to not wonder if strange questions had a strange answers made to them.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Then he went on and inquired of the next what a man should do to be exceedingly beloved, “He must be very powerful,” said he, “without making himself too much feared.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

The answer of the seventh to his question, how a man might become a god, was, “By doing that which is impossible for men to do.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

The eighth told him,” Life is stronger that death, because it supports so many miseries.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

And that last being asked how long he thought I decent for a man to lives, said, “Till death appeared more desirable than life.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

But Clitus for all this would not give over, desiring Alexander to speak out if he had anything more to say, or else why did he invite men who were freeborn and accustomed to speak their minds openly without restraint to sup with him. He had better live and converse with barbarians and slaves who would not scruple to bow the knee to his Persian girdle and his white tunic.
Which words so provoked Alexander that, not able to suppress his anger any longer, he threw one of the apples that lay upon the table ant him, and hit him, and then looked about for his sword. But Aristophanes, one of the lifeguard, had hid that out of the way, and others came ab out him and besought him, but in vain;

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 565

Clitus still refusing to yield, was with much trouble force by his friends out of the room. But he came in again immediately at another door, very irreverently and confidently singing the verses out of Euripides’s Andromache, In Greece, Alas! How ill things ordered are!

Upon this, at last, Alexander, snatching a spear from one of the soldiers, met Clitus as he was coming forward and was putting by the curtain that hung before the door, and ran him through the body. He fell at once with a cry and a groan.
Upon which the king’s anger immediately vanishing, he came perfectly to himself, and when he saw his friends about him all in a profound silence, he pulled the speak out of the body, and would have thrust it into his own throat, if the guards had not held his hands, and by main force carried him away into his chamber, where all that night and the next day he wept bitterly, till being quite spent with lamenting and exclaiming, he lay, as it were, speechless, only fetching deep sighs. His friends apprehending some harm from his silence, broke into the room, but he took no notice of a what any of them said, till Aristander putting him in mind of the vision he had seen concerning Clitus, and the prodigy that followed, as if all had come to pass by an unavoidable fatality, he then seemed to moderate his grief.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 565

…as he was breaking up the ground near the river Oxus, to set up the royal pavilion, discovered a spring of a fat oily liquor, which, after the top was taken off, ran pure, clear oil, without any difference either of taste or smell, having exactly the same smoothness and brightness, and that too, in a country where no olives grew. The water, indeed, of the river Oxus, is said to be the smoothest of the feeling of all waters, and to leave a gloss on the skins of those who bathe themselves in it.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 568

The first being asked which he thought the most numerous, the dead or the living, answered, “The living, because those who are dead are not at all.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Of the second, he desired to know whether the earth or the sea produced the largest beasts; who told him, “The earth, for the sea is but a part of it.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

His question to the third was, “Which is the cunningest of beasts?” “That,” said he, “which men have not yet found out.” Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

He bade the fourth tell him what argument he used to Sabbas to persuade him to revolt. “No other,” said he, “than that he should either live or die nobly,”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Of the fifth he ask, which was the eldest, night or day. The philosopher replied, “Day was eldest, by one day at least.” But perceiving Alexander not well satisfied with that account, he added that he ought to not wonder if strange questions had a strange answers made to them.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Then he went on and inquired of the next what a man should do to be exceedingly beloved, “He must be very powerful,” said he, “without making himself too much feared.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

The answer of the seventh to his question, how a man might become a god, was, “By doing that which is impossible for men to do.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

The eighth told him,” Life is stronger that death, because it supports so many miseries.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

And that last being asked how long he thought I decent for a man to lives, said, “Till death appeared more desirable than life.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 571

Taxiles, however, persuaded Calanus to wait upon Alexander. His proper name was Cale, which in the Indian tongue is a form of salutation, to those he met with anywhere, the Greeks called him Calanus. He is said to have shown Alexander an instructive emblem of government, which was this. He threw a dry shriveled hide upon the ground, and trod upon the edges of it. The skin when it was pressed in one place still rose up in another, wheresoever he trod round about it, till he set his foot in the middle, which made all the parts lie even and quiet. The meaning of this similitude being that he ought to reside most in the middle of his empire, and not spend too much time on the borders of it.
 Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 572

With his recommendation to Antipater, that when they came home, at all public shows and in the theatres, they should sit on the best and foremost seats, crowned with the chaplets of flowers. He ordered, also, that the children of those who had lost their lives in his service should have their father’s pay continued to them. 

 Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 574

But they were soon interrupted by Hephaestion’s falling sick of a fever, in which, being a young man and a soldier, too, he could not confine himself to so exact a diet as was necessary; for whilst his physician, Glaucus, was gone to the theatre, he ate a fowl for his dinner, and drank a large draught of wine, upon which he became very ill, and shortly after died.
 Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Alexander, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 574