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
Our admiration is so given to dead martyrs hat we have little time for living heroes.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
It is the cause and not merely the death that makes the martyr.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
It is said, that no one is a hero to their butler. The reason is, that it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The butler, however, will probably know well how to estimate his equals.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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
Being a hero is about the shortest lived profession on earth.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.
—Noam Chomsky (b.1928) American Linguist, Social Critic
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
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) American Military Leader
A hero is a man who is afraid to run away.
—English Proverb
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
One brave deed makes no hero.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all. I am just like everybody else.
—Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian Revolutionary Leader
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
You cannot be a hero without being a coward.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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
Suicide is a crime the most revolting to the feelings; nor does any reason suggest itself to our understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate poltroonery. For what claim can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of fortunes? True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
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
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
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Who is a hero? He who conquers his urges
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer
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
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
What is a society without a heroic dimension?
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
There are heroes in evil as well as in good.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
What is a hero without love for mankind.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
No man is a hero to his valet. This is not because the hero is no hero, but because the valet is a valet.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
Only a handful of men and women leave an imprint on the conscience of a nation and on the history that they helped shape, …
—Barack Obama (b.1961) American Head of State, Academic, Politician, Author
Mankind’s common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life’s supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man’s frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me.
—Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82) Italian Revolutionary, Soldier, Politician
Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer
A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.
—Unknown
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
What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in.
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945) British Liberal Statesman
How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Thus we feed on genius, and refresh ourselves from too much conversation with our mates, and exult in the depth of nature in that direction in which he leads us. What indemnification is one great man for populations of pigmies! Every mother wishes one son a genius, though all the rest should be mediocre. But a new danger appears in the excess of influence of the great man. His attractions warp us from our place. We have become underlings and intellectual suicides. Ah! yonder in the horizon is our help;- other great men, new qualities, counterweights and checks on each other. We cloy of the honey of each peculiar greatness. Every hero becomes a bore at last. Perhaps Voltaire was not bad-hearted, yet he said of the good Jesus, even, I pray you, let me never hear that man’s name again. They cry up the virtues of George Washington,- Damn George Washington! is the poor Jacobin’s whole speech and confutation. But it is human nature’s indispensable defense. The centripetence augments the centrifugence. We balance one man with his opposite, and the health of the state depends on the see-saw.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.
—Warren Bennis (1925–2014) American Business Academic, Author
Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero’s heart.
—Common Proverb
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator