Alexander the Great Quotes 1–30 of 43 Quotes
Alexander III (20/21 July 356 BC – 11 June 323 BC) was the King of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, and creator of an empire that included Greece, Persia, Egypt, and many regions beyond them; commonly known as Alexander the Great (in Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος : Megas Alexandros). He was undefeated in battle and is considered as one of the most notable military commanders in history.
Below are 30 of 43 sourced Alexander the Great quotes. Sources and related information appear under each quote. Use the 'Cite this quote' link to get citation references.
“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.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: Statement upon seeing Bucephalas being led away as useless and beyond training, as quoted in Lives by Plutarch, as translated by Arthur Hugh Clough
“Know ye not that the end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered?”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: As quoted in Lives by Plutarch, VII, "Demosthenes and Cicero. Alexander and Caesar" (40.2), as translated by Bernadotte Perrin
“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.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: Addressing the dead Hellenes (the Athenean and Thebean Greeks) of the Battle of Chaeronea, as quoted in Historiae Alexandri Magni by Quintus Curtius Rufus
“If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: 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. As quoted in "On the Fortune of Alexander" by Plutarch, 332 a-b
“I do not steal victory.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: Reply to the suggestion by Parmenion, before the Battle of Gaugamela, that he attack the Persian camp during the night, reported in Life of Alexander by Plutarch, as quoted in A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (1900) by John Bagnell Bury
“If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorious Hellenes should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos…”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: As quoted in "On the Fortune of Alexander" by Plutarch, 332 a-b
“Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: Addressing his troops prior to the Battle of Issus, as quoted in Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian Book II, 7
“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.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: Alexander's letter to Persian king Darius III of Persia in response to a truce plea, as quoted in Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian; translated as Anabasis of Alexander by P. A. Brunt, for the "Loeb Edition" Book II 14, 4
“So would I, if I were Parmenion.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: • Variants: I too, if I were Parmenion. But I am Alexander.
So would I, if I were Parmenion.
So should I, if I were Parmenion.
So should I, if I were Parmenion: but as I am Alexander, I cannot.
I would do it if I was Parmenion, but I am Alexander.
If I were Parmenion, that is what I would do. But I am Alexander and so will answer in another way.
So would I, if I were Parmenion, but I am Alexander, so I will send Darius a different answer.
If I were Perdicas, I shall not fail to tell you, I would have endorsed this arrangement at once, but I am Alexander, and I shall not do it. (as quoted from medieval French romances in The Medieval French Alexander (2002) by Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox, p. 81)
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“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
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Quote source: As quoted in the Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 1.37.9-13
“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
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Quote source: As quoted in Lives by Plutarch, as translated by Arthur Hugh Clough
“To the strongest!”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: After being asked, by his generals on his deathbed, who was to succeed him. It has been speculated that his voice may have been indistinct and that he may have said "Krateros" (the name of one of his generals), but Krateros was not around, and the others may have chosen to hear "Kratistos" — the strongest. As quoted in The Mask of Jove: a history of Graeco-Roman civilization from the death of Alexander to the death of Constantine (1966) by Stringfellow Barr, p. 6
“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.”
— Alexander the Great
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Quote source: On taking charge of an attack on a fortress, in Pushing to the Front, or, Success under Difficulties : A Book of Inspiration (1896) by Orison Swett Marden, p. 55
“I consider not what Parmenion should receive, but what Alexander should give.”
— Alexander the Great
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More on this quote: On his gifts for the services of others, as quoted in Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrases, Allusions, and Words That Have A Tale To Tell (1905) by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, p. 30
• quoted in Alexander : A History of the Origin and Growth of the Art of War from Earliest Times to the Battle Of Ipsus, B. C. 301 (1899) by Theodore Ayrault Dodge
“Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal.”
— Alexander the Great
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More on this quote: As quoted in Alexander the Great (1973) by Robin Lane Fox
• Unsourced variant : Only sex and sleep make me conscious that I am mortal.
“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?”
— Alexander the Great
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More on this quote: Pausing and addressing to a fallen statue of Xerxes the Great
• Plutarch. The age of Alexander: nine Greek lives. Penguin, 1977. p. 294
“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
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Quote source: Vitruvius, De Architectura Bk. 2, Introduction, Sec. 3
“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
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Alexander the Great. “Alexander the Great Quotes: 1–30 of 43 Quotes.” Last modified August 5, 2021. https://www.quotescosmos.com/people/Alexander-the-Great-quotes.html#19
Quote source: Quoted by Plutarch in Life of Alexander from Plutarch's Lives as translated by John Dryden (1683)
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“There are no more worlds to conquer!”
— Alexander the Great (Disputed)
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More on this quote: Statement portrayed as a quotation in a 1927 Reader's Digest article, this probably derives from traditions about Alexander lamenting at his father Philip's victories that there would be no conquests left for him, or that after his conquests in Egypt and Asia there were no worlds left to conquer.
• Some of the oldest accounts of this, as quoted by John Calvin state that on "hearing that there were other worlds, wept that he had not yet conquered one."
• This may originate from Plutarch's essay On the Tranquility of Mind, part of the essays Moralia: Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, "Is it not worthy of tears," he said, "that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?" http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/De_tranquillitate_animi*.html
• There are no more other worlds to conquer!
• Variant attributed as his "last words" at a few sites on the internet, but in no published sources.
“What is the purpose of adventuring around the world? A king must be an administrator. ... Alexander was a man full of great sound, lighting, and thunderbolt; [he was] like a cloud in spring or summer, which passed over the kings of the earth, rained upon them, and disappeared—indeed a summer's cloud disappears very soon [saying italicized].”
— Abu'l-Fazl Bayhaqi
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Quote source: about Alexander Abu'l-Fazl Bayhaqi, Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, Book VI, edited by Ali-Akbar Fayyaz, pages 118-119; in context of praising the Ghaznavid kings
“Alexander sacrificed to the gods to whom it was his custom to sacrifice, and gave a public banquet, seated all the Persians, and then any persons from the other peoples who took precedence for rank or any other high quality, and he himself and those around him drank from the same bowl and poured the same libations, with the Greek soothsayers and Magi initiating the ceremony. Alexander prayed for various blessings and especially that the Macedonians and Persians should enjoy harmony as partners in government. The story prevails that those who shared the banquet were nine thousand and that they all poured the same libation and gave the one victory cry as they did.”
— Arrian in Anabasis Alexandri
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Quote source: about Alexander Arrian in Anabasis Alexandri, 7.2.6-9
“[Diogenes speaking to Alexander] “Now perhaps you kings are also doing something like that: each of you has playmates — the eager followers on his side — he [Darius] his Persians and the other peoples of Asia, and you [Alexander] your Macedonians and the other Greeks.””
— Dio Chrysostom
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Quote source: about Alexander Dio Chrysostom, “Orationes”, 4.48
““Demades said that Xerxes fortified the sea with his ships, covered the land with his armies, concealed the sky with his weapons, and filled Persia with Greek prisoners. And now justly the barbarian is praised by Athenians because he took captive Greeks, but Alexander, a Greek, and leading Greeks, did not take captive those arrayed against him.[...]No one of the Greek kings went to Egypt except Alexander alone, and he went, not to make war, but to consult an oracle as to where he should found a city which would forever bear his name.[...]So Alexander was the first of the Greeks to take Egypt, and so became the first both of Greeks and of barbarians.””
— Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes
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Quote source: about Alexander Historia Alexandri Magni of Pseudo-Kallisthenes, 2.4
“Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? [...] Eleganter enim et ueraciter Alexandro illi Magno quidam comprehensus pirata respondit. Nam cum idem rex hominem interrogaret, quid ei uideretur, ut mare haberet infestum, ille libera contumacia: Quod tibi, inquit, ut orbem terrarum; sed quia ego exiguo nauigio facio, latro uocor; quia tu magna classe, imperator.”
— Justice being taken away
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More on this quote: about Alexander Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? ... Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."
• Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Book IV, Ch. 4
“After fighting, scheming and murdering in pursuit of the secure tenure of absolute power, he found himself at last on a lonely pinnacle over an abyss, with no use for his power and security unattainable. His genius was such that he ended an epoch and began another - but one of unceasing war and misery, from which exhaustion produced an approach to order after two generations and peace at last under the Roman Empire. He himself never found peace. One is tempted to see him, in medieval terms, as the man who sold his soul to the Devil for power: the Devil kept his part of the bargain but ultimately claimed his own. But to the historian, prosaically such allegory, we must put it differently: to him, when he has done all the work - work that must be done, and done carefully - of analysing the play of faction and the system of government, Alexander illustrates with startling clarity the ultimate loneliness of supreme power.”
— Ernst Badian
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Quote source: about Alexander Ernst Badian, Studies in Greek and Roman History, Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power, 1964 p. 204
“Alexander the Great, reflecting on his friends degenerating into sloth and luxury, told them that it was a most slavish thing to luxuriate, and a most royal thing to labour.”
— Isaac Barrow
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Quote source: about Alexander Isaac Barrow, in "Sermon 51 : Of Industry in General", in Sermons on Various Subjects (1823), Vol. 3. p. 33
“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. He also grew up, to the delight of Philip, serious-minded, untiring, passionately keen to succeed in any difficult task, and yet more keen the more difficult it was. He was a great reader, too. He had been early caught by the glamour of the Tale of Troy, like most Greek boys; and he never grew weary of it. As far as the Oxus and the Indus, he carried with him his personal copy of the Iliad...”
— A. R. Burn
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Quote source: about Alexander A. R. Burn, in Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Empire (1948), p. 11
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