quotations about heroes
Toward all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Heroism", Essays
The pulp hero, though he may be a renegade, is a guy who doesn't feel. Anything. Ever. And for the adolescent male -- pummeled by emotions left and right, whether arising from sexuality or resulting from his necessary encounters with authority -- this hero is a blessing, a relief and a release. The world he lives in, where feelings are totally under control, looks to the adolescent boy like heaven! This hero's lack of feeling -- like Star Trek's Spock -- is what allows him to be a genius, or allows him to shoot the bad guys and/or aliens, without a quiver to his lip.
SAMUEL R. DELANY
interview, Nerve, Jun. 14, 2001
When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.
FRED ROGERS
The World According to Mister Rogers
Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.
ADAM PHILLIPS
Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life
Whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Heroism", Essays
The lives of heroes have enriched history, and history has adorned the actions of heroes ; and thus I cannot say whether the historians are more indebted to those who provided them with such noble materials, or those great men to their historians.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
In our age, self-indulgence and self-destruction, rather than self-sacrifice, are the foundations for new heroic myths.
DEAN KOONTZ
Brother Odd
This is always the problem with building heroes. To keep them pure, we must build them stupid. The world is built on compromise and uncertainty, and such a place is too complex for heroes to flourish.
BERNARD BECKETT
Genesis
Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. Hamlet could be told from Polonius's point of view and called The Tragedy of Polonius, Lord Chamberlain of Denmark. He didn't think he was a minor character in anything, I daresay.
JOHN BARTH
The End of the Road
In analyzing the character of heroes, it is hardly possible to separate altogether the share of fortune from their own.
HENRY HALLAM
The Student's History of the Middle Ages
You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Jean-Christophe
I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, pinterest
I would describe a hero as a person who has no fear of life, who can face life squarely.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
Fear of Life
In all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.
IAIN M. BANKS
Use of Weapons
All heroes are shadows of Christ.
JOHN PIPER
Don't Waste Your Life
Fate does not invite ugly boring people to save the world; and if you do try to save the world (without being beautiful, strong, clever, or wise), you will soon die pointlessly and how much adventure is there in that?
JAMES ALAN GARDNER
Ascending
The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Heroism", Essays
She preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Heroism", Essays
Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood--for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Ministry of Fear