Heroism Quotes - Page 12

• Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

  J. M. Coetzee

  Life, Hero, Character

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• You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life.

  Libba Bray

  Father, Greatness, Luxury

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• All peace-loving women shut up when they sense they have stepped onto Guy Turf. Guy Turf is a murky realm of ego and pride and chivalry and testosterone and heroism.

  Jeanne Marie Laskas

  Pride, Guy, Ego

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• There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Winter, Nerves

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.164, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Sleep, Winter

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.115, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 'Heroism' is not the same as coping. A man who does his job properly and succeeds through his own efforts is definitely to be commended, but he is not a hero in the classic sense until he deliberately lays his life on the line for a cause he deems to be greater than himself.

  Jeff Cooper

  Jobs, Hero, Men

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• I believe in a passionately strong feeling for the poetry of life - for the beautiful, the mysterious, the romantic, the ecstatic - the loveliness of Nature, the lovability of people, everything that excites us, everything that starts our imagination working, LAUGHTER, gaiety, strength, heroism, love, tenderness, every time we see - however dimly - the godlike that is in everyone and want to kneel in reverence.

  Leopold Stokowski

  Beautiful, Strong, Laughter

  Leopold Stokowski (1943). “Music for all of us”

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• I wouldn't characterize anybody who fought in Vietnam as a war hero. In 23 bombing sorties, there must have been civilians that were killed and there's no heroism to that.

  Medea Benjamin

  War, Hero, Vietnam

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• We are the planet, fully as much as water, earth, fire and air are the planet, and if the planet survives, it will only be through heroism. Not occasional heroism, a remarkable instance of it here and there, but constant heroism, systematic heroism, heroism as governing principle.

  Russell Banks

  Fire, Air, Water

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• From an over-arching point-of-view, in war there is heroism on both sides. Obviously, the victor gets the spoils, the victor gets to write history, but there's heroism and compassion on both sides, and to me that's very important.

  Russell Crowe

  War, Writing, Compassion

  "The Water Diviner - Russell Crowe interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Only the violent acts of men "count" toward something besides evil in a patriarchy. It is the male story of violence that is sanctioned both socially and aesthetically. The male hero and acts of heroism require violence. Everyone is okey dokey with that. We are only beginning to see that constricting set of truths open up a little.

  Lidia Yuknavitch

  Hero, Men, Violent Acts

  Source: therumpus.net

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• [Man] ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspiration, Science, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.46, Booklassic

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• Is society debasing the idea of heroism by using it to describe anyone who makes people feel good about themselves?

  Lena Williams

  Hero, Ideas, People

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• Mostly the subject of the photograph, which can be anyone really, coming down the street - someone that has no idea. "Heroism" in photography, just like in a novel, is for everyone.

  Hedi Slimane

  Photography, Ideas, Novel

  Source: www.cnn.com

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• I think we must cling to the hope that we can see in the great heroism, the bravery of the firemen and policemen, and the outpouring of caring and concern that has come pouring in from around the world.

  Jane Goodall

  Caring, Thinking, Bravery

  "Dr. Jane Goodall: Healing and possibility of peace". Live chat, www.cnn.com. September 27, 2001.

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• The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden…Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.

  Octave Mirbeau

  Lying, Flower, Passion

  Octave Mirbeau (2016). “Torture Garden”, p.149, Library of Alexandria

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• One part brave, three parts fool!

  Christopher Paolini

  Brave, Three, Fool

  "Eragon". www.imdb.com. 2006.

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• I have come to think that great men are characterized precisely by the extreme position which they take, and that their heroism consists in holding to that extremity throughout their lives.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Men, Thinking, Position

  Marguerite Yourcenar (1957). “Hadrian's Memoirs”

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• I think empathy is a guy who punches you in the face at a bus station, and you're somehow able to look at that him and know enough about what situation he was in to know that he had to do that and not to hit back. That's empathy, and nothing ever happens in writing that has that kind of moral heroism about it.

  John Jeremiah Sullivan

  Writing, Thinking, Empathy

  Interview with Allie Tollaksen, ndsmcobserver.com. January 22, 2014.

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• …there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is - common decency.

  Albert Camus

  Mean, Fighting, Common Decency

  Albert Camus (1960). “The plague: translated from the French”

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• If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity's point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.

  Thomas Nagel

  Inspirational, Life, Believe

  "Mortal questions". Book by Thomas Nagel, 1979.

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• Feminist art... will take the great human themes – love, death, heroism, suffering, history itself – and render them fully human.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Art, Feminist, Suffering

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• The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.

  Gretel Ehrlich

  Art, Dumb, Tough

  Gretel Ehrlich (1986). “The Solace of Open Spaces”, Penguin Group USA

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• What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.

  William James

  Life, Death, Light

  William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.153, Harvard University Press

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• An act of heroism, of extraordinary courage, the grandeur of it, won't easily inspire us to act in imitation, but it can inspire us to emulate its author. For that, we should learn what we can of the whole experience of the subject, the hero's life, as it was before and after, and believe that trying to emulate the character it reveals is one tried way to prepare for the tests that might await us and gain hope that our courage will not be wanting in the moment.

  John McCain

  Inspirational, Believe, Hero

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