Plato aimed to prevent this disintegration. He wished to raise citizens who would not envy the heroes of story but honor their own measure. He feared that those who fill their imagination with other people’s lives would neglect the shaping of their own. The guardians of his city could not be actors; they had to be themselves—unified, steadfast, and... See more

We sometimes like to comfort ourselves by imagining that the ambitious are prideful and arrogant so that those of us who never risk, never aspire, never launch out into the deep get to wear the moralizing mantle of humility. But this imagining is often just thin cover for a lack of courage, even laziness. Playing it safe isn’t humble. Second, it is

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Here is how Plutarch, classical biographer par excellence, described his attraction to the stories of great men:

We may say, then, that achievements of this kind, which do not arouse the spirit of emulation or create any passionate desire to imitate them, are of no great benefit to the spectator. On the other hand virtue in action immediately takes

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