Quotes About Heroes

They leaned towards him, like flowers to the sun, drinking in his luster. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all.

Pride became us—heroes were never modest.

Divine blood purified our muddy race, bred heroes from dust and clay.

All heroes are fools, he liked to say. What he meant was, all heroes but me.

You promise mercy to spies so they will spill their story, then you kill them after. You beat men who mutiny. You coax heroes from their sulks. You keep spirits high at any cost.

There was violence in that room, with so many princes and heroes and kings competing for a single prize, but we knew how to ape civilization.

But part of that incipient racism had always led whites to assume the leadership positions and perpetuated the view that whites rather than blacks were the heroes of the movement.

Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them.

So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone's older brother and someone's older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.

What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the beginning of television's dominance of our culture-- for television is at its most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery of heroes in their prime-- and of all holy-seeming innocents-- that televisions achieves its deplorable greatness.

It was not necessarily what Ketchum might have said about the war in Iraq, or the never-ending mess in the Middle East, that particularly interested Danny or Six-Pack Pam. It was what Ketchum would have said about anything. It was the old logger's voice that Danny and Six-Pack wanted to hear. Thus we try to keep our heroes alive; hence we remember them

These Princes of Maine, these Kings of New England, these orphans of Saint Cloud's - whoever they were, they were the heroes of their own lives. That much Homer could see in the darkness, that much Dr. Larch, like a father, gave him.

Greene's writing—he was the first modern writer I liked. Before Greene, my heroes were all novelists from the nineteenth century. Living in the nineteenth century can expand your loneliness; as a writer, it's lonely living there.

I have been Presumptuous against love, against the sky, Against all elements, against the tie Of mortals each to each, against the blooms Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs Of heroes gone.

Economists are generally negligent of their heroes.

It's my failure to sound like my heroes that's allowed me to sound like myself.

We can be in our day what the heroes of faith were in their day - but remember at the time they didn't know they were heroes.

Indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith.

All heroes are fools, he liked to say. What he meant was, all heroes but me. So who could correct him when he erred? He had stood on the beach looking at Telegonus and believing him a pirate. He had stood in his hall and accused Telemachus of conspiracy. Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

I am Achilles, son of Peleus, god-born, best of the Greeks," he said. "I have come to bring you victory." A second of startled silence, then the men roared their approval. Pride became us—heroes were never modest.

I suppose that is true. You said that he shaped kingdoms, but he also shaped the thoughts of men. Before him, all the heroes were Heracles and Jason. Now children will play at voyaging, conquering hostile lands with wits and words.

ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS.

So do I," said Achilles. "I have heard that you taught Heracles and Jason, thick-fingered though they were. Is it true?

Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first.