Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.
Some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.
Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille.
Any social organization does well enough if it isn't rigid. The framework doesn't matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing — except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros.
Examples are few of men ruined by giving. Men are heroes in spending, very cravens in what they give.--_Bovée._
Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.
The very scientist who, in the service of the sinful king, was the brain behind the horror of the labyrinth, quite as readily can serve the purposes of freedom. But the hero-heart must be at hand. \x85 Centuries of husbandry, decades of diligent culling, the work of numerous hearts and hands, have gone into the hackling, sorting, and spinning of this tightly twisted yarn. Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us \x97 the labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
Liberty is an old fact; it has had its heroes and its martyrs in almost every age.
~Heroes.~--A light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning have often made a hero of the same man who, by indigestion, a restless night, and a rainy morning would have proved a coward.--_Chesterfield._
Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old; Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold.
Don't ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren't any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I'm never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.
It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.
Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way. All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today.
We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.
When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth, And the infidel come into full possession.
The legacy of heroes--the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.
Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me. Perhaps I've spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high.
I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.
La vie des heros a enrichi l'histoire, et l'histoire a embelli les actions des heros=--The lives of heroes have enriched history, and history has embellished the exploits of heroes.
Place moral heroes in the field, and heroines will follow them as brides.
When the first Superman movie came out, I gave dozens of interviews to promote it. The most frequent question was: What is a hero? My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences. Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. They are the real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them.
We are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure. The directors used to say they were showing us its real face and how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don't have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact desensitizing us. They are saying that everyone is brutal, and the heroes must be as brutal as the villains or they turn into fools. There seems to be an assumption that if you're offended by movie brutality, you are somehow playing into the hands of the people who want censorship... Yet surely, when night after night atrocities are served up to us as entertainment, it's worth some anxiety. … How can people go on talking about the dazzling brilliance of movies and not notice that the directors are sucking up to the thugs in the audience?
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.
My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that's heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.
There is no merit where there is no trial; and, till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, faith for falsehood.
Poets and heroes are of the same race; the latter do what the former conceive.
The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.
The Americans are certainly hero-worshippers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.
Mother's darlings are but milksop heroes.
Hail, Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoyed the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize, Let its altar reach the skies!
I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.
In analyzing the character of heroes it is hardly possible to separate altogether the share of Fortune from their own.--_Hallam._
It is found in every light of hope, It knows no bounds nor space It has risen in red and black and white, It is there in every race. It lies in the hearts of heroes dead, It screams in tyrants\x92 eyes, It has reached the peak of mountains high, It comes searing \x91cross the skies. It lights the dark of this prison cell, It thunders forth its might, It is "the undauntable thought", my friend, That thought that says "I'm right!"
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc / Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces=--Mantua bore me, Calabria carried me off, Naples holds me now. I sang of pastures, fields and heroes.
Worship your heroes from afar; contact withers them.
An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.
Nobody had more class than Melville. To do what he did in Moby-Dick, to tell a story and to risk putting so much material into it. If you could weigh a book, I don’t know any book that would be more full. It’s more full than War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov. It has Saint Elmo’s fire, and great whales, and grand arguments between heroes, and secret passions. It risks wandering far, far out into the globe. Melville took on the whole world, saw it all in a vision, and risked everything in prose that sings. You have a sense from the very beginning that Melville had a vision in his mind of what this book was going to look like, and he trusted himself to follow it through all the way.
Thus adorned, the two heroes, 'twixt shoulder and elbow, Shook hands and went to 't; and the word it was bilbow.
Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman--repose in energy. The Greek battle-pieces are calm; the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect.
Why insist, ye heroes, against the will of Jupiter, in pressing a Hercules into your enterprise? Know ye not that for him there is quite other work appointed, which he must do all alone, and not another with him?
'Tis sweet to hear of heroes dead, / To know them still alive, / But sweeter if we earn their bread, / And in us they survive.
How many illustrious and noble heroes have lived too long by a day!
Combien de heros, glorieux, magnanimes, ont vecu trop d'un jour=--How many famous and high-souled heroes have lived a day too long!
Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes. Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes. -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
"Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling. Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." ... "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes</p> are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but
-- Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
So... so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell? Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts? From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees? A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze? Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange A walk on part in a war For the lead role in a cage? -- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the the
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
HOGAN'S HEROES DRINKING GAME -- Take a shot every time: -- Sergeant Schultz says, "I knoooooowww nooooothing!" -- General Burkhalter or Major Hochstetter intimidate/insult Colonel Klink. -- Colonel Klink falls for Colonel Hogan's flattery. -- One of the prisoners sneaks out of camp (one shot for each prisoner to go). -- Colonel Klink snaps to attention after answering the phone (two shots if it's one of our heroes on the other end). -- One of the Germans is threatened with being sent to the Russian front. -- Corporal Newkirk calls up a German in his phoney German accent, and tricks him (two shots if it's Colonel Klink). -- Hogan has a romantic interlude with a beautiful girl from the underground. -- Colonel Klink relates how he's never had an escape from Stalag 13. -- Sergeant Schultz gives up a secret (two shots if he's bribed with food). -- The prisoners listen to the Germans' conversation by a hidden transmitter. -- Sergeant Schultz "captures" one of the prisoners after an escape. -- Lebeau pronounces "colonel" as "cuh-loh-`nell". -- Carter builds some kind of device (two shots if it's not explosive). -- Lebeau wears his apron. -- Hogan says "We've got no choice" when someone claims that the plan is impossible. -- The prisoners capture an important German, and sneak him out the tunnel.
If I could read your mind, love, What a tale your thoughts could tell, Just like a paperback novel, The kind the drugstore sells, When you reach the part where the heartaches come, The hero would be me,
You won't read that book again, because
the ending is just too hard to take.
I walk away, like a movie star,
Who gets burned in a three way script,
Enter number two,
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me,
But for now, love, let's be real
I never thought I could act this way,
And I've got to say that I just don't get it,
I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone
And I just can't get it back...
-- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"
Ye heroes Ajax! your accustomed force Exert, oh! think not of disastrous flight, And ye shall save the people. Nought I fear Fatal elsewhere, although Troy's haughty sons Have pass'd the barrier with so fierce a throng Tumultuous; for the Grecians brazen-greaved Will check them there. Here only I expect And with much dread some dire event forebode, Where Hector, terrible as fire, and loud Vaunting his glorious origin from Jove, Leads on the Trojans. Oh that from on high Some God would form the purpose in your hearts To stand yourselves firmly, and to exhort The rest to stand! so should ye chase him hence All ardent as he is, and even although Olympian Jove himself his rage inspire.
That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light; this arose from a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and which always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time; but to-day history and daylight have arrived.
"Nay, madame; I would place each of these heroes on his right pedestal--that of Robespierre on his scaffold in the Place Louis Quinze; that of Napoleon on the column of the Place Vendome. The only difference consists in the opposite character of the equality advocated by these two men; one is the equality that elevates, the other is the equality that degrades; one brings a king within reach of the guillotine, the other elevates the people to a level with the throne. Observe," said Villefort, smiling, "I do not mean to deny that both these men were revolutionary scoundrels, and that the 9th Thermidor and the 4th of April, in the year 1814, were lucky days for France, worthy of being gratefully remembered by every friend to monarchy and civil order; and that explains how it comes to pass that, fallen, as I trust he is forever, Napoleon has still retained a train of parasitical satellites. Still, marquise, it has been so with other usurpers--Cromwell, for instance, who was not half so bad as Napoleon, had his partisans and advocates."
"Cut his throat is not the word. The fact is that the great revolutionary geniuses, who were not malicious, that is incontestable, who were heroes, pardi! found that Andre Chenier embarrassed them somewhat, and they had him guillot . . . that is to say, those great men on the 7th of Thermidor, besought Andre Chenier, in the interests of public safety, to be so good as to go . . ."
He ended; they enfolding in their arms The dead, upbore him high above the ground With force united; after whom the host Of Troy, seeing the body borne away, Shouted, and with impetuous onset all Follow'd them. As the hounds, urged from behind By youthful hunters, on the wounded boar Make fierce assault; awhile at utmost speed They stretch toward him hungering, for the prey, But oft as, turning sudden, the stout brawn Faces them, scatter'd on all sides escape; The Trojans so, thick thronging in the rear, Ceaseless with falchions and spears double-edged Annoy'd them sore, but oft as in retreat The dauntless heroes, the Ajaces turn'd To face them, deadly wan grew every cheek, And not a Trojan dared with onset rude Molest them more in conflict for the dead.
Waging war at every summons and every time that Utopia desires it, is not the thing for the peoples. Nations have not always and at every hour the temperament of heroes and martyrs.
Achilles sing, O Goddess! Peleus' son; His wrath pernicious, who ten thousand woes Caused to Achaia's host, sent many a soul Illustrious into Ades premature, And Heroes gave (so stood the will of Jove) To dogs and to all ravening fowls a prey, When fierce dispute had separated once The noble Chief Achilles from the son Of Atreus, Agamemnon, King of men.
"A great writer(9) of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, 'Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to pass. That may be, they may stand aside, respectfully or no, but in my poor opinion the great writer ended his book in this way either in an access of childish and naďve optimism, or simply in fear of the censorship of the day. For if the troika were drawn by his heroes, Sobakevitch, Nozdryov, Tchitchikov, it could reach no rational goal, whoever might be driving it. And those were the heroes of an older generation, ours are worse specimens still...."
But when they came, at length, where Xanthus winds His stream vortiginous from Jove derived, There, separating Ilium's host, he drove Part o'er the plain to Troy in the same road By which the Grecians had so lately fled The fury of illustrious Hector's arm. That way they fled pouring themselves along Flood-like, and Juno, to retard them, threw Darkness as night before them. Other part, Push'd down the sides of Xanthus, headlong plunged With dashing sound into his dizzy stream, And all his banks re-echoed loud the roar. They, struggling, shriek'd in silver eddies whirl'd. As when, by violence of fire expell'd, Locusts uplifted on the wing escape To some broad river, swift the sudden blaze Pursues them, they, astonish'd, strew the flood, So, by Achilles driven, a mingled throng Of horses and of warriors overspread Xanthus, and glutted all his sounding course He, chief of heroes, leaving on the bank His spear against a tamarisk reclined, Plunged like a God, with falchion arm'd alone But fill'd with thoughts of havoc. On all sides Down came his edge; groans follow'd dread to hear Of warriors smitten by the sword, and all The waters as they ran redden'd with blood. As smaller fishes, flying the pursuit Of some huge dolphin, terrified, the creeks And secret hollows of a haven fill, For none of all that he can seize he spares, So lurk'd the trembling Trojans in the caves Of Xanthus' awful flood. But he (his hands Wearied at length with slaughter) from the rest Twelve youths selected whom to death he doom'd, In vengeance for his loved Patroclus slain. Them stupified with dread like fawns he drove Forth from the river, manacling their hands Behind them fast with their own tunic-strings, And gave them to his warrior train in charge. Then, ardent still for blood, rushing again Toward the stream, Dardanian Priam's son He met, Lycaon, as he climb'd the bank. Him erst by night, in his own father's field Finding him, he had led captive away. Lycaon was employ'd cutting green shoots Of the wild-fig for chariot-rings, when lo! Terrible, unforeseen, Achilles came. He seized and sent him in a ship afar To Lemnos; there the son of Jason paid His price, and, at great cost, Eëtion The guest of Jason, thence redeeming him, Sent him to fair Arisba; but he 'scaped Thence also and regain'd his father's house. Eleven days, at his return, he gave To recreation joyous with his friends, And on the twelfth his fate cast him again Into Achilles' hands, who to the shades Now doom'd him, howsoever loth to go. Soon as Achilles swiftest of the swift Him naked saw (for neither spear had he Nor shield nor helmet, but, when he emerged, Weary and faint had cast them all away) Indignant to his mighty self he said.
Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him--its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire--after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone--at his fine lineaments fixed in study--I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes--Christian and Pagan--her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.