HEROES QUOTES II
quotations about heroes
We would make our heroes shallow.... We would make them brittle. It is they who must remind us of the true meaning of strength.
ANNE RICE
Tale of the Body Thief
Could it be ... that the hero is one who is willing to set out, take the first step, shoulder something? Perhaps the hero is one who puts his foot upon a path not knowing what he may expect from life but in some way feeling in his bones that life expects something of him.
P. L. TRAVERS
"The World of the Hero"
When traitors are called heroes (or heroes traitors ...), dark times must have fallen.
STEPHEN KING
The Gunslinger
There is heroism even in the circles of hell for fellow-sinners who cling to each other in the fiery whirlwind and never recriminate.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
Not every boy thrown to the wolves becomes a hero.
JOHN BARTH
attributed, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Tales of heroes end in bliss.
TANITH LEE
Mortal Suns
Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.
PETER S. BEAGLE
The Last Unicorn
There is one thing that must be clear to the eye of every thinking person, and that is, that there are two kinds of heroes, the true and the false. The true hero will sacrifice himself for the good of others; the false hero will sacrifice others for the good of himself. Consequently, I repeat that every thinking person will be able to distinguish between the true and false hero, and having made this dinstinction, will be able to give to each the amount of honour due to them. A coup d'etat indulged in to enable one to rise from a citizen's chair to an emperor's throne, could not possibly be for the good of others; then can he be a hero that has raised himself aloft on the bloody corpses of unoffending fellow men and citizens? I answer No, a thousand times No.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Heroism", Short Essays
Great men and heroes are especial gifts of God, men who He gives and upholds, who carry on their work and calling, and do great deeds.
MARTIN LUTHER
attributed, Day's Collacon
If everyone is a hero, then disasters and atrocities lose their meaning. It's only when certain people are heroes and others are not that these tragedies and disasters that mankind faces take on meaning.
GAO XINGJIAN
"A Conversation with Gao Xingjian", Asia Society
They say everyone's born a hero. But if you let it, life will push you over the line until you're the villain. Problem is, you don't always know that you've crossed that line.
SCOTT REYNOLDS & MELISSA ROSENBERG
"AKA Smile", Jessica Jones
Name one hero who was happy.
MADELINE MILLER
The Song of Achilles
Part of what we want to do with the Heroic Imagination Project is to get kids to think about what it means to be a hero. The most basic concept of a hero is socially constructed: It differs from culture to culture and changes over time. Think of Christopher Columbus. Until recently, he was a hero. Now he’s a genocidal murderer! If he were alive today, he'd say, "What happened? I used to be a hero, and now people are throwing tomatoes at me!"
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
"Dr. Evil: Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo on why good people do bad things", Design Mind
The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Heroism
The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.
JEAN GENET
Prisoner of Love
Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.
GEORGE ELIOT
Daniel Deronda
The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music, alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there is somewhat not holy in it; it seems not to know that other souls are of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Heroism", Essays
Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later.
JOSS WHEDON
Serenity
Perhaps the heroic element in our natures is exhibited to the best advantage, not in going from success to success, and so on through a series of triumphs, but in gathering, on the very field of defeat itself, the materials for renewed efforts, and in proceeding, with no abatement of heart or energy, to form fresh designs upon the very ruins and ashes of blasted hopes. Yes, it is this indomitable persistence in a purpose, continued alike through defeat and success, that makes, more than aught else, the hero.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
To be a hero, you have to learn to be a deviant, because you're always going against the conformity of the group. Heroes are ordinary people whose social actions are extraordinary. Who act.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
TED talk, Sep. 2008