quotations about heroes
There are men who bloom in chaos. You call them heroes or villains, depending on which side wins the war, but until the battle call they are but normal men who long for action, who lust for the opportunity to throw off the routine of their normal lives like a cocoon and come into their own. They sense a destiny larger than themselves, but only when structures collapse around them do these men become warriors.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO & CHUCK HOGAN
The Fall
No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.
TERRY PRATCHETT
The Color of Magic
Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.
DIANA WYNNE JONES
Fire and Hemlock
I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
GAO XINGJIAN
The Guardian, Aug. 1, 2008
To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
I need a hero, I'm holding out for at hero 'till the end of the night
He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero, I'm holding out for a hero 'till the morning light
He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life, larger than life.
BONNIE TYLER
"Holding Out for a Hero"
Every age has its heroes.
G. W. CURTIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
We all recall the cruel stepmother in fairy tales. That archetype is often a necessary element in a fairy tale so that the heroine/hero can become a person of character and power. Stories of heroes and heroines often begin with a wound or loss or injustice and end with heroic acts of restoration.
DAVID RICHO
The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, -- they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Present Crisis
Times of heroism are generally times of terror.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Heroism", Essays
No age or condition is without its heroes. The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon, the least confused thinker its Socrates, the least commonplace poet its Shakespeare.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Maxims for Revolutionists
Elements of the heroic exist in almost every individual: it is only the felicitous development of them all in one that is rare.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged