Biography
Biography (from the Greek words bios meaning "life" (βίος), and graphein meaning "write" (γράφω)) is a genre of literature and other forms of media such as film, based on the written accounts of individual lives. While a biography may focus on a subject of fiction or non-fiction, the term is usually in reference to non-fiction.
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Quotes
[edit]- ... We talked of biography.—JOHNSON. 'It is rarely well executed. They only who live with a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination ; and few people who have lived with a man know what to remark about him. The chaplain of a late Bishop, whom I was to assist in writing some memoirs of his Lordship, could tell me scarcely any thing ...'
- James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Volume I.—(1709–1776). London: H. Frowde. 1904. p. 658.
- Talking of biography, I said, in writing a life, a man's peculiarities should be mentioned, because they mark his character. JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no doubt as to peculiarities : the question is, whether a man's vices should be mentioned ...' ... 'If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight ; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was ...'
- James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Volume II.—(1776–1784). London: H. Frowde. 1904. p. 118.
- There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.
- Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
- The open-ended nature of biography is one of its mysterious attractions. No Life is ever definitive: it draws or rejects from past work, it reflects often unconsciously the concerns and questions of its own age, and it passes on something hidden to the future. Every serious attempt at an historic portrait of the dead will subtly absorb the milieu and temperament of its living author, however objective he or she sets out to be. This is precisely the strength, rather than the weakness, of its subjectivity.
- Richard Holmes, "Preface to New Edition (1994)". Shelley: The Pursuit. New York Review Books Classics. New York Review of Books. 2013. ISBN 9781590175705. (880 pages; 1st edition 1974; revised edition 1994)
- I am a biography nut myself, and I think when you're trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them.
- Charlie Munger, as quoted by Janet Lowe in: Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger. 30 October 2000. p. 136. ISBN 9780471244738.
- Though just biographic record will touch the failings of the good and the eminent with tenderness, it ought not to spread over them the veil of suppression.
- Anna Seward, Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin (Philadelphia: Wm Poyntell & Co., 1804), p. ix.
- When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)- Walt Whitman in "When I Read the Book" (1867; 1871) in Leaves of Grass.
