Heroism Quotes - Page 17

• There is only one way fit for a man - Heroism, or Master-Morality, or Violence. All the other people in between are ploughing the sand.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, People, Ploughing

  "The Pilgrim's Regress". Book by C. S. Lewis, p. 100, 1933.

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• Men who are sincere in defending their freedom, will always feel concern at every circumstance which seems to make against them; it is the natural and honest consequence of all affectionate attachments, and the want of it is a vice. But the dejection lasts only for a moment; they soon rise out of it with additional vigor; the glow of hope, courage and fortitude, will, in a little time, supply the place of every inferior passion, and kindle the whole heart into heroism.

  Thomas Paine

  Passion, Heart, Men

  Thomas Paine (2003). “Common Sense, The Rights of Man and Other Essential Writings of ThomasPaine”, p.104, Penguin

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• The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, War, Patriotic

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• I believe that Communism is necessary to the world, and I believe that the heroism of Russia has fired men's hopes in a way which was essential to the realization of Communism in the future. Regarded as a splendid attempt, without which ultimate success would have been very improbable, Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind.

  Bertrand Russell

  Gratitude, Believe, Men

  Bertrand Russell (1972). “Bolshevism: practice and theory”, Ayer Co Pub

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• You don't see heroism, humanity and hope like you do in a horror story. Horror celebrates the kind of friendship that keeps you standing shoulder to shoulder with someone even when the world is falling apart around you.

  Alexander Gordon Smith

  Fall, Horror Stories, Humanity

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• On the other hand, heroism is basic to the character of the Nordic peoples. This heroism of the ancient mythic period and this is what is decisive has never been lost, despite times of decline, so long as the Nordic blood was still alive. Heroism, in fact, took many forms, from the warrior nobility of Siegfried or Hercules to the intellectual nobility of Copernicus and Leonardo , the religious nobility of Eckehart and Lagarde, or the political nobility of Frederick the Great and Bismarck , and its substance has remained the same.

  Alfred Rosenberg

  Religious, Character, Warrior

  "The Myth of the Twentieth Century". Book by Alfred Rosenberg, 1930.

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• If in heroic conduct, whether of warriors, philosophers or scientists, we see what is of essential nature, then we know that all heroism groups itself around a supreme value. This has always been the idea of honour, spiritual and mental. But the idea of honour, like its corporeal representatives, was involved in a war of soul and spirit against the values represented by alien races or the offspring of racial chaos.

  Alfred Rosenberg

  Spiritual, War, Ideas

  "The Myth of the Twentieth Century". Book by Alfred Rosenberg, 1930.

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• Fool! I mean not That poor-souled piece of heroism, self-slaughter; Oh no! the miserablest day we live There's many a better thing to do than die!

  George Darley

  Suicide, Mean, Self

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• I am well aware that there is such a great craving in man for heroism and the heroic, and that hero worship forms not a small motif in his complex. I am also aware that, unless man believes in his own heroism and the heroism of others, he cannot achieve much or great things. We must, however, take proper care that we do not make a fetish of this cult of hero-worship, for then we will turn ourselves into votaries of false gods and prophets.

  Aung San

  Hero, Believe, Men

  Presidential address to the first Congress of the AFPFL, January 20, 1946.

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• Recognising that an ostentatious cult of heroism and state service served an important propaganda function for the British elite does not mean, of course, that we should dismiss it as artificial or insincere. All aristocracies have a strong military tradition, and for many British patricians the protracted warfare of the period was a godsend. It gave them a job, and, more important, a purpose, an opportunity to carry out what they had been trained to do since childhood: ride horses, fire guns, exercise their undoubted physical courage and tell other people what to do.

  Linda Colley

  Strong, Horse, Jobs

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• Our unconscious, then, does not believe in its own death; it behaves as if it were immortal. It knows nothing that is negative; in it contradictories coincide. This may be the secret of heroism.

  Sigmund Freud

  Art, Philosophy, Believe

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• The will to be oneself is heroism

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Oneself

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• 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 Bonaparte

  Suicide, Men, Understanding

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• It is an impressive truth that sometimes in the very lowest forms of duty, less than which would rank a man as a villain, there is, nevertheless the sublimest ascent of self-sacrifice. To do less would class you as an object of eternal scorn, to do so much presumes the grandeur of heroism.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Sacrifice, Men, Self

  Thomas De Quincey (1854). “De Quincey's works”, p.125

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• Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them,--that it was a vain endeavor?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Trying, Sincerity

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.357, Penguin

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• Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Character, Heart, Men

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.58

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• A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.

  Victor Hugo

  Ideas, Madness, Ends

  Victor Hugo, Frank Lee Benedict (1874). “Ninety-three”, p.205, Dawson Bros.

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• The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may going to prove one's self a fool.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Hero, Self, Doubt

  The Blithedale Romance ch. 2 (1852)

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• History of Ireland--lawlessness and turbulency, robbery and oppression, hatred and revenge, blind selfishness everywhere--no principle, no heroism. What can be done with it?

  William Allingham

  Revenge, Hatred, Selfishness

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• Love, supreme power of the heart, mysterious enthusiasm that encloses in itself all poetry, all heroism, all religion!

  Madame de Stael

  Heart, Enthusiasm, Mysterious

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• Fantasy is a literature particularly useful for embodying and examining the real difference between good and evil. In an America where our reality may seem degraded to posturing patriotism and self-righteous brutality, imaginative literature continues to question what heroism is, to examine the roots of power, and to offer moral alternatives. Imagination is the instrument of ethics. There are many metaphors besides battle, many choices besides war, and most ways of doing good do not, in fact, involve killing anybody. Fanstasy is good at thinking about those other ways.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Real, War, Thinking

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• The backside of heroism is often rather sad; women and servants know that. They know also that the heroism may be no less real for that. But achievement is smaller than men think. What is large is the sky, the earth, the sea, the soul.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Real, Men, Thinking

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin”, p.599, Simon and Schuster

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• Faith is the very heroism and enterprise of intellect. Faith is not a passivity, but a faculty. Faith is power, the material of effect. Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great work men of history have been men who believed like giants.

  Charles Henry Parkhurst

  Faith, Men, Giants

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• [On gay ban in the military:] Heroism, I believe, is a trait that does not know race, color, creed, sex, or sexual orientation.

  Dianne Feinstein

  Sex, Military, Believe

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• Preparatory human beings. - I welcome all signs that a more virile, warlike age is about to begin, which will restore honour to courage above all! For this age shall prepare the way for one yet higher, and it shall gather the strength that this higher age will require some day - the age that will carry heroism into the search for knowledge and that will wage wars for the sake of ideas and their consequences.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  War, Ideas, Age

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