Biographers Quote by Samuel Johnson

As it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way,…

— Henry Fielding

Let us have our heroes. Let us continue to believe that some have been truly great; that it lies within human ability to overcome…

— Lyndon Baines Johnson

“A biography should be faithful to the truth. I do not believe that a biography of a man should be all praises, it should…

— Teodoro A. Agoncillo

The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record…

— Samuel Smiles

while it is certainly the biographer's business to describe the foibles, passions and idiosyncrasies which make his subject a person, his work will be…

— Iris Origo

Biography, especially of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study.…

— Horace Mann

To be a biographer is a somewhat peculiar endeavor. It seems to me it requires not only the tact, patience, and thoroughness of a…

— Nancy Milford

Biography is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of…

— Janet Malcolm

Of all the species of literary composition, perhaps biography is the most delightful. The attention concentrated on one individual gives a unity to the…

— Robert Hall

Biographers use historians more than historians use biographers, although there can be two-way traffic - e.g., the ever-growing production of biographies of women is…

— Claire Tomalin

Two temptations that impair the value of their work inevitably beset public men who write memoirs. One is a tendency to reconstruct the past…

— Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as…

— Plutarch