Heroes Quotes
Emerson and Carlyle, who both wrote on the hero, lead the page, followed by Warren Farrell, Gordon Lightfoot and Robert Jordan. The best-known sourced line is Brecht’s, from Life of Galileo (1939): Andrea says, “Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero,” and Galileo answers, “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” Nassim Taleb, in Fooled by Randomness (2001), says heroes are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost. Jean Paul wrote that the grandest heroic deeds are done within four walls.
“What is a hero without love for mankind?” is credited to Doris Lessing and flagged misattributed. The notes give the real source: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Philotas (1759). The cockroach-and-butterfly line credited to Nietzsche is also misattributed.
A Hero is a Hero at all points; in the soul and thought of him first of all.
I don't have to be a hero, he thought in silent wonder. All I have to do is pretend.
Wars, conflict, it's all business. "One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero". Numbers sanctify.
Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?
My hero is Nobel Laureate Neville Mott who published four papers at the age of 92 when he died.
A static hero is a public liability. Progress grows out of motion.
In the theatre, as in life, we prefer a villain with a sense of humor to a hero without one.