#hero

The moral, I suppose, would be that the first requirements for a heroic career are the knightly virtues of loyalty, temperance, and courage. The loyalty in this case is of two degrees or commitments: first, to the chosen adventure, but then, also, to the ideals of the order of knighthood. Now, this second commitment seems to put Gawain's way in opposition to the way of the Buddha, who when ordered by the Lord of Duty to perform the social duties proper to his caste, simply ignored the command, and that night achieved illumination as well as release from rebirth. Gawain is a European and, like Odysseus, who remained true to the earth and returned from the Island of the Sun to his marriage with Penelope, he has accepted, as the commitment of his life, not release from but loyalty to the values of life in this world. And yet, as we have just seen, whether following the middle way of the Buddha or the middle way of Gawain, the passage to fulfillment lies between the perils of desire and fear. ↗

— Joseph Campbell

#courage #desire #fear #gawain #hero

A friend once asked me why it was that stories about animals and their heroism...are so compelling. ...we love them because they're the closest thing we have to material evidence of an objective moral order--or, to put it another way, they're the closest thing we have to proof of the existence of God. They seem to prove that the things that matter to and move us the most--things like love, courage, loyalty, altruism--aren't just ideas we made up from nothing. To see them demonstrated in other animals proves they're real things, that they exist in the world independently of what humans invent and tell each other in the form of myth or fable. ↗

— Gwen Cooper

#courage

Such a lot is won when even a single man gets to his feet and says No ↗

— Bertolt Brecht

#courage #hero #independence #inspirational #courage

By the Angel, Bridget’s depressing,” said Henry, setting down his newspaper directly on his plate and causing the edge to soak through with egg yolk. Charlotte opened her mouth as if to object, and closed it again. “It’s all heartbreak, death and unrequited love.” “Well, that is what most songs are about,” said Will. “Requited love is nice, but it doesn’t make much of a ballad. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#will-herondale #death

Yesterday I saved a baby, a boy, a man, and an old man from death, and all by simply not impregnating anybody. But I don't consider myself a hero. Merely heroic, and also unable to reach any of my lady friends on the phone. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#boy #death #funny #hero #heroic

When he endures nothing but endless miseries-- What pleasure is there in living the day after day, Edging slowly back and forth toward death? Anyone who warms their heart with the glow Of flickering hope is worth nothing at all. The noble man should either live with honor or die with honor. That's all there is to be said. ↗

— Sophocles

#nobility #suicide #death

I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. ↗

— Edgar Rice Burroughs

#death

Vanye: You're asking me to kill you. Luthiel: I'm asking you to save her. ↗

— Robert Fanney

#heroism #luthiel #vanye #death

poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you ↗

— Walt Whitman

#civil-war #compassion #comrade #comradeship #death

I think children want to believe that they can be heroes too. ↗

— Eleonore Caron

#children #heroes #inspirational #inspirational