402 Quotes About Heroism

Targets are achieved sooner out of need, than out of greed.

Everyone affected by war, captivity or aggression reacts differently, and away from it people might try to guess how they would act, or react, in the circumstances, but they do not really know.

If the only one who can kill an angel can’t do it, then who can?’ It’s a good question, one that takes me a minute to come up with an answer. ‘Obadiah West can. Him and his freedom fighters. I’m just a teenager.’‘History is filled with teenagers who lead the fight. Joan of Arc. Okita Soji, the samurai. Alexander the Great. They were all teenagers when they began leading their armies. I think we’re back to those times again, kid.

If you want to be a real warrior, then here’s our secret to you: we fight to protect others. We fight to protect the ones we love, the ones we respect, the ones we want to see prospering and achieving their goals, gaining their happiness. We do not wait for any reward for what we do. That is what true heroism is. That is what a warrior does.

I know that my buddy Jorgeson was a real American hero. I wish that he had lived to be something else, if not a painter of pictures then even some kind of fuckup with a factory job and four divorces, bankruptcy petitions, in and out of jail. I wish he had been that. I wish he had been anything rather than a real American hero.

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

Listen, sweetheart. Don't be a hero. [...] If they actually go through with this hare-brained notion and send you into the fighting, there will come a time when you'll have a choice between staying in your trench and crawling out of it to save a buddy. Or maybe you'll have had enough of getting shelled and decide you just have to run out there and shoot someone. That's what I mean. When that moment comes, you stay down. You keep your head down. You hug the ground.

It is not triumph which defines a man, but tragedy. Triumph always brings out the best in men, but tragedy shows us what we are made of.

I understand now my final purpose--through my words and deedsto inspire othersto find hope and strengthto speak and act.The girls who fearthe fire inside themselves,I burned for them.