Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy -- common clay, if you like read more

Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy -- common clay, if you like -- eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can't imagine dead. And then there are the others -- the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.

The opportunities for heroism are limited in this kind of world: the most people can do is sometimes not to read more

The opportunities for heroism are limited in this kind of world: the most people can do is sometimes not to be as weak as they've been at other times.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

..one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful read more

..one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes, they waste their deaths on us.

You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes, they waste their deaths on us.

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because read more

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I read more

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!