Heroic Quotes - Page 26

• I lived a dream life (almost too exclusively, perhaps) when I was a lad and even now my thought goes back for refreshment to thosedays when all the world seemed to be a place of heroic adventure in which one's heart must keep its own counsel.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Dream, Heart, Adventure

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Princeton University (1977). “The Papers of Woodrow Wilson: 1911-1912”

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• In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded....He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.

  Oscar Wilde

  Spiritual, Art, Philosophy

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• There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues madethem great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility.

  Herman Melville

  Taken, Humility, Greatness

  Herman Melville (2001). “Tales, Poems, and Other Writings”

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• You know that the nucleus of a time is not
  The poet but the poem, the growth of the mind
  Of the world, the heroic effort to live expressed
  As victory. The poet does not speak in ruins
  Nor stand there making orotund consolations.
  He shares the confusions of intelligence.

  Wallace Stevens

  Confusion, Poetry, Effort

  Wallace Stevens (1964). “the Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens”

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• What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free.

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, Believe, Hero

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• It is a mystery to me how a theologian can be praised for having brought himself to disbelieve dogmas. I've always thought that those who have brought themselves to believe in dogmas merit the true recognition owing a heroic deed.

  Karl Kraus

  Believe, Heroic Deeds, Religion

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

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• But nothing is better than a truth which appears not to have the semblance of truth. There is always something incomprehensible about the great heroic deeds performed by humanity because they rise so far beyond the mediocre measure of mere mortals; but it is always only because of the incredible feats that human beings have accomplished that humanity recovers its faith in itself.

  Stefan Zweig

  Truth, Heroic Deeds, Humanity

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• Heroic ages are not and never were sentimental and those daring conquistadores who conquered entire worlds for their Spain or Portugal received lamentably little thanks from their kings.

  Stefan Zweig

  Gratitude, Kings, Age

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• No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain's heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from ordinary humanity; there seemed no danger he feared, no effort too great for his limitless energies.

  Gretchen Rubin

  Country, Kings, Past

  Gretchen Rubin (2004). “Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of a Long Life”, p.12, Random House

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• When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government fell in May 1940, the nation turned to Churchill. At last, his unique qualities were brought to bear on a supreme challenge, and with his unshakable optimism, his heroic vision, and above all, his splendid speeches, Churchill roused the spirit of the British people.

  Gretchen Rubin

  Unique, Government, People

  Gretchen Rubin (2004). “Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of a Long Life”, p.17, Random House

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• Not for Moorcock the painful, infrequent excretion of dry little novels like so many rabbit pellets; his is the grand, messy fluxitself, in all its heroic vulgarity, its unquenchable optimism, its enthusiasm for the inexhaustible variousness of things.

  Angela Carter

  Creativity, Optimism, Rabbits

  Angela Carter (1993). “Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings”, Vintage Books

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• If we cannot come together to pause, to respect our dead and the heroic lives of meaning they led, then ours is truly a civilization lost.

  Mark McKinnon

  Civilization, Together, Lost

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• I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ]

  Clint Eastwood

  Growing Up, Fun, Age

  "Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio Interview, J. Edgar". MoviesOnline Interview, www.moviesonline.ca.

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• Virtue is but heroic bravery, to do the thing thought to be true, in spite of all enemies of flesh or spirit, in despite of all temptations or menaces.

  Albert Pike

  Bravery, Temptation, Enemy

  Albert Pike (2013). “Morals and Dogma”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

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• One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible.

  William James

  Spiritual, War, Men

  The Varieties of Religious Experience Lectures 14 - 15 (1902)

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• While the Second World War brought about untold misery and suffering, it was also a time when the world witnessed extraordinary bravery. Through the collective, heroic efforts of countless men and women, victory was claimed over tyranny and evil.

  Sam Kutesa

  War, Men, Evil

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• No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than another thing.... Yet what were history if he did not exaggerate it? How comes it that history never has to wait for facts, but for a man to write it? The ages may go on forgetting the facts never so long, he can remember two for every one forgotten. The musty records of history, like the catacombs, contain the perishable remains, but only in the breast of genius are embalmed the souls of heroes.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Hero, Writing, Men

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• Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and self-poise.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Self, House

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.433, Modern Library

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• Delicate, gracious, and eloquent, John Brandi's poems reveal that he remains an extraordinary profound poet of prayer and praise. His is the most honorable and heroic of ambitions - to dress our broken world in the clothes of language, trust, and hope.

  David St. John

  Prayer, Ambition, Clothes

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• Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mind, Cowardice, Scholar

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.16, 谷月社

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• Architecture is the alphabet of giants; it is the largest set of symbols ever made to meet the eyes of men. A tower stands up like a sort of simplified stature, of much more than heroic size.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Eye, Men, Alphabet

  "What Skyscrapers Tell Us ... About Us" by Jonathan Merritt, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 22, 2011.

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• Humanity needs heroic leadership from those who see all life as precious.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Humanity, Needs

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• 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.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Hero, Winning, Battle

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• He is like to be mistaken who makes choice of a covetous man for a friend, or relieth upon the reed of narrow and poltroon friendship. Pitiful things are only to be found in the cottages of such breasts; but bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty and generous honesty are the gems of noble minds, wherein (to derogate from none) the true, heroic English gentleman hath no peer.

  Thomas Browne

  Honesty, Men, Choices

  Sir Thomas Browne (1835). “Sir Thomas Browne's Works: Repertorium. A letter to a friend. Christian morals. Certain miscellany tracts. Unpublished papers”, p.79

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• Without the heroic, man has no meaning; without the economic, he has no sense. Economic man is most likely to be economic woman - a good wife, pulling the coat tails of her heroic husband, checking his extravagances of speech and action with words of caution and good sense. But without the heroic coat tails to pull, life for both of them would be dull and savorless indeed.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Husband, Men, Wife

  "The Skills of the Economist". Book by Kenneth Ewart Boulding, p. 183, 1958.

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