A hero is a man who is afraid to run away.
—English Proverb
The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.
—Helen Hayes (1900–93) American Actress, Philanthropist
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 Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
—Arthur Ashe (1943–93) American Tennis Player
The “paper tiger” hero, James Bond, offering the whites a triumphant image of themselves, is saying what many whites want desperately to hear reaffirmed: I am still the White Man, lord of the land, licensed to kill, and the world is still an empire at my feet.
—Eldridge Cleaver (1935–98) American Author, Activist
It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
—H. Norman Schwarzkopf (1934–2012) United States Army General
The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes—ah, they have all the necessary leisure.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.
—Unknown
The world’s battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
My heroes are and were my parents. I can’t see having anyone else as my heroes.
—Michael Jordan (b.1963) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
Children demand that their heroes should be freckleless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is 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 (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.
—John Barth (b.1930) American Postmodern Novelist
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
—Felix Adler (1851–1933) German-Born American Philosopher
It’s true that heroes are inspiring, but mustn’t they also do some rescuing if they are to be worthy of their name? Would Wonder Woman matter if she only sent commiserating telegrams to the distressed?
—Jeanette Winterson (b.1959) English Novelist, Journalist
What is a hero without love for mankind.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
What is a society without a heroic dimension?
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid… He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
One brave deed makes no hero.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy—common clay, if you like—eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can’t imagine dead. And then there are the others—the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist