Lucien de Samosate citations (19 citations)

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Histoires vraies

Lucien de Samosate

Dialogues des morts

Lucien de Samosate

Histoires vraies

Lucien de Samosate

Dialogues des morts

Lucien de Samosate

Lucien de Samosate: 19 citations0 J'aime

Lucien de Samosate Citations

“Voilà pourquoi, à mon tour, cédant à la vanité de laisser quelque œuvre à la postérité — je ne voulais pas être le seul à me priver de la liberté d'affabuler — je me suis adonné au mensonge, bien plus loyalement que les autres : je serai véridique au moins sur un point, en déclarant que je mens. Je crois qu'ainsi je pourrai échapper à la critique, en reconnaissant spontanément que je ne dis rien de vrai. J'écris donc sur des choses que je n'ai pas vues, que je n'ai pas vécues, que je n'ai point apprises de tiers, et qui en outre n'existent absolument pas et ne peuvent pas le moins du monde se produire. Voilà pourquoi les lecteurs ne doivent en aucune façon y croire.
Je partis un jour des colonnes d'Hercule et, gagnant l'Océan du couchant, je naviguais par vent favorable. La raison et le motif de mon voyage étaient mon esprit curieux et mon envie d'aventures nouvelles, mon désir de connaître les limites de l'Océan et les êtres qui habitent au-delà.”

Lucien de Samosate livre Histoires vraies

Fin du prologue et début du récit proprement dit des Histoires vraies.
Histoires vraies

“MÉNIPPE. Et pourtant, vous trois, les plus méchants des Lydiens, des Phrygiens et des Assyriens, sachez bien que je ne cesserai pas. Partout où vous irez, je vous suivrai pour vous tourmenter, pour chanter et pour me moquer de vous.”

Lucien de Samosate livre Dialogues des morts

Dialogues des morts

Lucien de Samosate: Citations en anglais

“The good historian, then, must be thus described: he must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty; one who, to use the words of the comic poet, calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

“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.”

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Lucian

Sect. 39; vol. 2, pp. 128-9; H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (trans.) The Works of Lucian of Samosata.
How to Write History

“In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

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

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Lucian

Sect. 39; vol. 2, p. 128; H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (trans.) The Works of Lucian of Samosata.
How to Write History

“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!”

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Lucian

How to Write History

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

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Lucian

How to Write History

“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.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

“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.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

“First, then, I went to the Indians, the mightiest nation upon earth. I had little trouble in persuading them to descend from their elephants and follow me. The Brahmins, who dwell between Oxydracae and the country of the Nechrei, are mine to a man: they live according to my laws, and are respected by all their neighbours; and the manner of their death is truly wonderful.”

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Lucian

The Runaways http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl4/wl421.htm

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

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Lucian

"Menippus, a Necromantic Experiment", sect. 4; vol. 1, p. 158.

“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.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

“Criticism is twofold: that which teaches us what we are to choose, and that which teaches us what to avoid.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

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

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Lucian

How to Write History

“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.”

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Lucian

"The True History", sect. 4; vol. 2, p. 137.

“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.”

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Lucian

How to Write History

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

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Lucian

Cited in Tim Flannery, Atmosphere of Hope. Solutions to the Climate Crisis, Penguin Books, 2015, page 81 ISBN 9780141981048.
Other

“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.”

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Lucian

"Hermotimus, or the Rival Philosophies", sect. 49; vol. 2, p. 69.

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