Biography

Biography (from the Greek words bios meaning "life", and graphein meaning "write") 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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• Biography who have risen by their own exertions from poverty and obscurity to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence.
  • Horace Luo

• The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.
  • Samuel Smiles

• To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
  • Plutarch

• Biographies grasp the exteriors of lives and give what account they can of their interiors. These can be wholly different realities. (From the essay "Ruskin").
  • Guy Davenport