Hero quotes
3.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside hero — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"In almost every thriller, a point is reached when someone, usually calling from a phone booth, telephones with a vital piece of information, which he cannot divulge by phone. By the time the hero arrives at the place where they had arranged to meet, the caller is dead, or too near death to tell. There is never an explanation for the reluctance of the caller to impart his message in the first place."
"Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer."
"It is the hero alone, not the coward, who has liberation within his easy reach."
"The sinister nature of the American soil is apparent in places like Gettysburg. Fertilize it with the blood of heros, and it brings forth a frozen-custard stand."
"As a kid, I drew cartoon characters and comic book heroes. Spiderman and the X-Men were my favorites."
"The heroes of obtrusiveness, people with whom no soldier would lie down in the trenches, though he has to submit to being interviewed by them, break into recently abandoned royal castles so that they can report, "We got there first!" It would be far less shameful to be paid for committing atrocities than for fabricating them."
"The anti-hero or hero usually has a journey or quest so they are interesting as you find out what's going to happen, what they are looking for. What are they trying to do? Sometimes what they do is heroic or comes with a price or sacrifice or maybe the way they do things isn't so great and that's when they become anti-heroes. But the journey of an anti-hero combined with a good story done well is always worthwhile."
"To stand upon ramparts and die for our principles is heroic, but to sally forth to battle and win for our principles is something more than heroic."
"I love 'Guitar Hero' because I love music, but I have no musical ability whatsoever. So I love a game that makes you feel like you're a rock star."
"Walking the streets of Tokyo with Hawking in his wheelchair ... I felt as if I were taking a walk through Galilee with Jesus Christ [as] crowds of Japanese silently streamed after us, stretching out their hands to touch Hawking's wheelchair. ... The crowds had streamed after Einstein [on Einstein's visit to Japan in 1922] as they streamed after Hawking seventy years later. ... They showed exquisite choice in their heroes. ... Somehow they understood that Einstein and Hawking were not just great scientists, but great human beings."
"To be human is to have one's little modicum of romance secreted away in one's composition. One never ceases to make a hero of one's self, (in private,) during life, but only alters the style of heroism from time to time as the drifting years belittle certain gods of his admiration and raise up others in their stead."
"Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero."
"I think there was the studio mentality for a long time that women and girls can relate to a male hero, but boys and men can't relate to a female hero."
"... if one does not have wild dreams of achievement, there is no spur even to get the dishes washed. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being."
"That is the problem with this rich and anguished generation. Somewhere a long time ago they fell in love with the idea that politicians- even the slickest and brightest presidential candidates- were real heroes and truly exciting people. That is wrong on its face. They are mainly dull people with corrupt instincts and criminal children."
"All actual heroes are essential men, And all men possible heroes."
"As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary."
"I'm happy to respect authority when it's genuine authority, based on moral or intellectual or even technical superiority. I'm eager to follow a hero if we can find one. But I tend to resist or evade any kind of authority based merely on the power to coerce. Government, for example. The Army tried to train us to salute the uniform, not the man. Failed. I will salute the man, maybe, if I think he's worthy of it, but I don't salute uniforms anymore."
"We could steal time, just for one day We can be Heroes, for ever and ever What d'you say?"
"I'm sick of over-trained heroes. I'm really bored with that. Guys that are just ripped to shreds and full of skills. That's boring me. Give me the mechanic that picks up a weapon. Now I'm interested. That's my hero."
