Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

For a lot of people, Superman is and has always been America's hero. He stands for what we believe is the best within us: limitless strength tempered by compassion, that can bear adversity and emerge stronger on the other side. He stands for what we all feel we would like to be able to stand for, when standing is hardest.

Heroes represent the best of ourselves, respecting that we are human beings. A hero can be anyone from Gandhi to your classroom teacher, anyone who can show courage when faced with a problem. A hero is someone who is willing to help others in his or her best capacity.

The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

What makes a heroine? I think I can answer that. A heroine is a woman who risks going too far in order to find out how far one can go for a cause greater than herself.

To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you're all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit on your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-Ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill; these are not rational acts. They are often merely necessary.

It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.

Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.

They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish.

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

Hard times don't create heroes. It is during the hard times when the 'hero' within us is revealed.

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

There is no better test of character than when you're tossed into crisis. That's when we see one's true colors shine through. So I try my best to make my characters personally involved in the plot, in a way that stresses them and tests them.

I think on some level, that's a fear that exists in everybody, that if we're tested, we won't make the courageous choice. We won't make the decision that would make us heroic. We make the decision that would reveal us to be all too human.

True heroics, obviously, is not the absence of fear, but having that fear and doing something anyway.

Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.

Heroism in a bad cause.

I love to see heroes who fuel some kind of moral furnace inside them, who are driven to take on the evils of the world, despite the fact that the evils of the world are more powerful than them. And essentially can never be defeated, but they refuse to bow down. And in order to enjoy that aspect of the hero, you've got to put them through hell.

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.

But I believe we must not allow feelings of defeat to take root in our hearts.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.