#heroism

They say Alexander the Great slept with 'The Iliad' beneath his pillow. Though I have never led an army, I am a wanderer. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s 'Odyssey' as if it were the sweet body of a woman. ↗

— Roman Payne

#army #dreams #heroism #sleep #the-iliad

Heroic dreams are the consolation of the unhappy. After all, when people like us say we're being heroic, it usually means we're about to kill each other--or kill ourselves. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#heroics #heroism #orhan-pamuk #snow #dreams

Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#heroism #faith

War is hell, but sometimes in the midst of that hell men do things that heaven itself must be proud of. A hand grenade is hurled into a group of men. One of the men throws himself on top of it, making his body a living shield. In the burst of wild fire he dies, and the others live. Heroism is only a word, often a phony one. This is an action for which there is no good word because we can hardly even imagine it, let alone give it its proper name. Very literally, one man takes death into his bowels, takes fire into his own sweet flesh, so that the other men can take life, some of them men he hardly knows. ↗

— Frederick Buechner

#heroism #life #sacrifice #war #death

Don't you get it? Can you imagine the...the heroism? That's what grace is all about. He didn't even think for one second about himself. All he thought about was that little girl, and saving her life. ↗

— Charles Sheehan-Miles

#heroism #war #imagination

Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#heroism #love

So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken. You're a hero. ↗

— Joe Abercrombie

#war #love

I'm a fucking coward." "Maybe." Craw jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Whirrun's corpse. "There's a hero. Tell me who's better off. ↗

— Joe Abercrombie

#heroism #war #cowardice

1 month ago the American people stopped to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We thought first and foremost of the selflessness, patriotism and heroism by our troops, our National Guard and Reserves. ↗

— Rosa DeLauro

#american #american people #anniversary #beginning #first

I come in a world of iron...to make a world of gold ↗

— Dale Wasserman

#generosity #giving #goals #goals-in-life #heroism