Lucian

The effort only shifted me from the frying-pan into the fire.

— Lucian

The truth is hidden from us. Even if a mere piece of luck brings us straight to it, we shall have no grounded conviction of our success; there are so many similar objects, all claiming to be the real thing.

— Lucian

I now make the only true statement you are to expect – that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers' incredulity.

— Lucian

These men seem not to know that poetry has its particular rules and precepts; and that history is governed by others directly opposite.

— Lucian

He is unpardonable, therefore, who cannot distinguish one from the other; but lays on history the paint of poetry, its flattery, fable, and hyperbole: it is just as ridiculous as it would be to clothe one of our robust wrestlers, who is as hard as an oak, in fine purple, or some such meretricious garb, and put paint on his cheeks; how would such ornaments debase and degrade him!

— Lucian

History, when she adds pleasure to utility, may attract more admirers; though as long as she is possessed of that greatest of perfections, truth, she need not be anxious concerning beauty.

— Lucian

In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable.

— Lucian

Everything has a beauty peculiar to itself; but if you put one instead of another, the most beautiful becomes ugly, because it is not in its proper place.

— Lucian

If the brave should fly, he who pursues must be braver.

— Lucian

I say, therefore, that he who would write history well must be possessed of these two principal qualifications, a fine understanding and a good style: one is the gift of nature, and cannot be taught; the other may be acquired by frequent exercise, perpetual labour and an emulation of the ancients.

— Lucian

The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened.

— Lucian

For history, I say again, has this and this only for its own: if a man will start upon it, he must sacrifice to no God but Truth; he must neglect all else; his sole rule and unerring guide is this – to think not of those who are listening to him now, but of the yet unborn who shall seek his converse.

— Lucian

The body of the history is only a long narrative, and as such it must go on with a soft and even motion, alike in every part, so that nothing should stand too forward, or retreat too far behind.

— Lucian

Ignorance is a dreadful thing and has caused no end of damage to the human race.

— Lucian