"Yes, you're right Crateros. I should have sent you veterans home sooner, and I will. The first of your shall be the Silver Shields, and then every man who has served seven years. Respected, rich, LOVED! You'll be treated by you wives and children as heroes for the rest of your lives. And enjoy a peaceful death. But you dream Crateros! Your simplicity long ended when you took Persian mistresses and children and you thickened your holdings with plunder and jewels... Because you have fallen in love with all the things in life that destroy men! Do you not see? And you, as well as I, know, that as the years decline, and the memories stale, and all your great victories fade, it will always be remembered, you left your king in Asia! Because I will go on...with my Asians!"

"You know there’s not a part of me without a scar or a bone broken by sword, knife, stone, catapult, and club. I’ve shared every hardship with all of you."

"You break my heart, you men... afraid!? Of course you have fears, we all have fears. Because no one has ever come this far before."

"Hephaestion loves me as I am, not "who"."

"What disturbs me most is not your lack of respect for my judgment, but your contempt for a world far older than ours."

"Aristotle be damned! By Zeus and by all the gods, what makes you so much better than them, Cassander! Better than you really are! In you and those like you is this."

"Each land, each boundary I cross, I strip away another illusion. I sense death will be the last. Yet still I push, harder and harder to reach this..."home." Where has our eagle gone? We must go on Ptolemy, until we find an end."

"Were we gods we'd breach these walls to the Eastern Ocean."

"It is you that I love Hephaestion, no other."

"When I was a child my mother thought me divine and my father weak... which one am I Hephaistion? Weak or divine?"

"In the end, all that matters is what you've done."

"Stay with me tonight, Hephaestion."

"It's a high ransom she charges for nine months lodging in the womb."

"I've taken you farther than my father ever dreamed!"

"I am not my father!"

"You've all honored your country and your ancestors and now we come to this most distant place in Asia where across from us Darius has at last gathered a vast army, but look again at this horde and ask yourselves, who is this great king who pays assassins in gold coins to murder my father, our king in a most despicable and cowardly manner? Who is this great king Darius who enslaves his own men to fight? Who is this king but a king of air? These men do not fight for their homes. They fight because this king tells them they must. And when they fight, they will melt away like the air, because they know no loyalty to a king of slaves! But we are not here today as slaves. We are here today... as Macedonian free men! And all their arms, their numbers, their chariots and their fine horses will mean nothing in the hands of slaves. Some of you, perhaps myself, will not live to see the sun set over these mountains today, for I will be in the very thick of battle with you. But remember this, the greatest honor a man can achieve is to live with great courage, and to die gloriously in battle for his home. I say to you what every warrior has known since the beginning of time: conquer your fear and I promise you you will conquer death! Someday I promise you, your sons and grandsons will look into your eyes. And when they ask you why you fought so bravely at Gaugamela, you will answer, with all the strength of your great, great hearts: "I was here this day at Gaugamela...for the freedom...and glory...of Greece!" Zeus be with us!"

"If you were to fall Hephaestion, even if Macedonia were to lose a king I would avenge you, and follow you down to the house of death."

"I didn't cross Asia to steal this victory, Cassander." And right not my butt."

"I promise that I will beat you one day, Hephaistion."

"(Of his father Phillip) This is the man who is going to take you from Macedonia to Persia?! He can't even make it from one couch to the next."

"I can only warn you, not teach you. Beware of what you dream for; the gods have a way of punishing such pride."

"The east has a way of swallowing men and their dreams."

"When men lie together in lust, it is a surrender to the passions and does nothing for the excellence in us. Nor does any other excess, Cassander, jealousy among them. But when men lie together, and knowledge and virtue are passed between them, that is pure and excellent. When they compete to bring out the good, the best in each other, this is the love between men that can build a city-state and lift us from our frog pond."

"If only these frogs could look outward from their favoured position in the centre, Greece could rule the world."

"Excess in all things is the undoing of men!"

"Although an inferior race the Persians control at least four fifths of the known world. They rule and we sit around like frogs!"

"To love excellence is truly to love the gods."

"My Alexander... I remember the young man who wanted to be Achilles, and then out did him."

"You're mortal. And they know it. And they forgive you because you make them proud of themselves."

"Sometimes, to always expect the best of everyone is arrogance."

"The generals question your obsession with Darius... they say it was never meant for you to be King of Asia."

"You're everything I care for and by the sweet breath of Aphrodite I'm so jealous of losing you to this world you want so badly."

"Remember the fates of the heroes. They suffered greatly."

"I found it in Egypt. The man who sold it to me said it came from a time when man worshipped sun and stars. I'll always think of you as the sun, Alexander and I pray your dream will shine on all men. I wish you a son."

"You strike me still, Alexander. You have eyes like no other. Ah, I sound as stupid as a schoolboy..."

"Look at you! Look at you! You are everything he (Philip) was not. He was coarse, you are refined. He was general, you are a king. He could not rule himself...and you, shall rule the world."

"Their skin is water. And their tongue is fire. She is your friend."

"Alexander, the world is yours. Take it!"

"You will be nineteen this summer and the girls already say you don't like them, you like Hephaistion more. I understand it is natural for a young man."

"In my womb I carried my avenger!"

"(Of Philip) He calls me a barbarian! He makes a mockery of Dionysus every night."

"All you desire! The world is yours! Take it..."

"I lost many a man. Young ones, never been with a woman. Some died of disease. Some were butchered in Scythia by the banks of the Oxus. Some died good. Some just didn’t get no luck. But they died. Forty thousand I come over with eight years ago. And we march after you more than 10,000 miles. In the rain and in the sun, we fought for you. Some of us 50 battles we’ve been in. And we killed many a barbarian. And now, when I look around, how many of them faces do I see?"

"My king, I'm a fightin' man. I like no belly-aching, I won't tolerate it in any of my units."