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Alexander the Great
(20 Sep 356 B.C. - 13 Jun 323 B.C.)
Greek king , also known as Alexander III of Macedon, who as a military commander fought distant campaigns with great success. He thus formed the largest western empire of ancient world, stretching from Greece to Northern India.
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Science Quotes by Alexander the Great (1 quote)
I am dying with the help of too many physicians.
Comment on his deathbed.
Comment on his deathbed.
— Alexander the Great
Attributed. Peter McDonald, In The Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations (2004), 2.
Quotes by others about Alexander the Great (3)
[Alexander the Great] was often extremely brutal to his captives, whom he sold into slavery, tortured to death, or forced to learn Greek.
In The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), 42, footnote.
Alexander the king of the Macedonians, began like a wretch to learn geometry, that he might know how little the earth was, whereof he had possessed very little. Thus, I say, like a wretch for this, because he was to understand that he did bear a false surname. For who can be great in so small a thing? Those things that were delivered were subtile, and to be learned by diligent attention: not which that mad man could perceive, who sent his thoughts beyond the ocean sea. Teach me, saith he, easy things. To whom his master said: These things be the same, and alike difficult unto all. Think thou that the nature of things saith this. These things whereof thou complainest, they are the same unto all: more easy things can be given unto none; but whosoever will, shall make those things more easy unto himself. How? With uprightness of mind.
In Thomas Lodge (trans.), 'Epistle 91', The Workes of Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Both Morrall and Naturall (1614), 383. Also in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica (1914), 135.
Alexander is said to have asked Menæchmus to teach him geometry concisely, but Menæchmus replied: “O king, through the country there are royal roads and roads for common citizens, but in geometry there is one road for all.”
As quoted in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 152-153, citing Stobaeus, Edition Wachsmuth (1884), Ecl. II, 30.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
