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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"How much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic manners! We will pardon them the want of books, or arts, and even of gentler virtues. How tenaciously we remember them!"
"At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her."
"Nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere."
"Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife."
"Mantua gave me birth, Calabri snatched me away, now Parthenope holds me; I sang of shepherds, pastures, and heroes. -Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope, cecini pascua, rura, duces"
"Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals"
"Dad," said Will, his voice very faint. "Are you a good person?" "To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself-" "And, adding it all up...?" "The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right."
"But no man's a hero to himself."
"Democracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them."
""If you are loyal you are successful," ruminated the company paper at one time. "All useful work is raised to the plane of art when love for the task-loyalty-is fused with the effort. Loyalty is the great lubricant of life. It saves the wear and tear of making daily decisions as to what is best to do. The man who is loyal to his work is not wrung nor perplexed by doubts, he sticks to the ship, and if the ship founders he goes down like a hero with colors flying at the masthead and the band playing.""
"There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms."
"I think if I were a superhero saving the world, I'd expect at least not to have to pay income taxes. I mean there should be something in it for a hero who risks his life to save mankind every day."
"If a woman does need a hero, she needs him today, not tomorrow."
"Jesse Owen was bigger than a black hero, he was an American hero. For me, I looked at it from that perspective. Through my research, I obviously learned a lot, much of which made me sad, upset, disappointed and even angry, regarding what Jesse had to go through. Not only was he a black man in America during an age of high racial tension and segregation, but he was also living in the middle of the Great Depression - it was very difficult times for him and his family."
"I sometimes feel like I'm caught in a vise. Some people feel like I'm some kind of hero. Others hate me."
"Every generation has to find their own heroes."
"To think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists."
"If we take a small step in extolling peacemakers as much as honoring war heroes, we will be making a giant leap towards peace."
"Intrepidity is an extraordinary strength of soul, which raises it above the troubles, disorders and emotions which the sight of great perils can arouse in it; by this strength heroes maintain a calm aspect and preserve their reason and liberty in the most surprising and terrible accidents."
"Unmixed praise is not due to any one. It leaves behind a sense of unreality. We can only do justice to a great man by a discriminating criticism. Hero-worship, which paints a faultless monster, whom the world never saw, is like those modern pictures which are a blaze of light without any shadow."
