Heroes Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old heroes quotes, heroes sayings, and heroes proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

A hero. You want to be one of those rare human beings who make history, rather than merely watch it flow around them like water around a rock. Dan Simmons
I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people. Maya Angelou
The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ultimately. But it makes the whole struggle of humanity worthwhile. John Gardner
We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. Eleanor Roosevelt
The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them. Jean Genet
Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen. Andrew Bernstein
Real change in society must start from individual initiative. The Dalai Lama
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Heroes are made in the hour of defeat. Success is, therefore, well described as a series of glorious defeats. Mahatma Gandhi
The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men. Henry David Thoreau
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. Benjamin Disraeli
The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference. Henry Miller
A hero is a man who is afraid to run away. English Proverb
The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers. Johann Kaspar Lavater
Being a hero is about the shortest lived profession on earth. Will Rogers
Heroes are created by popular demand, sometimes out of the scantiest materials. Gerald W. Johnson
Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards. Jean Jacques Rousseau
Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion. Calvin Coolidge
I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. Bob Dylan
The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. Felix Adler
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others, at whatever cost. Arthur Ashe
The world's battlefields have been in the heart chiefly; more heroism has been displayed in the household and the closet, than on the most memorable battlefields in history. Henry Ward Beecher
To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self. Charles Horton Cooley
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy. F. Scott Fitzgerald
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. Christopher Reeve
Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero's heart. Proverb
The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A hero is someone who rebels or seems to rebel against the facts of existence and seems to conquer them... Jim Morrison
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. Joseph Campbell
Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation. Norman Mailer
One brave deed makes no hero. John Greenleaf Whittier
The main thing about being a hero is to know when to die. Will Rogers
No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one. Jean Paul
You cannot be a hero without being a coward. George Bernard Shaw
The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. Umberto Eco
Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes. Benjamin Disraeli
Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. John Barth
Every hero becomes a bore at last. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our heroes are people and people are flawed. Don't let that taint the thing you love. Randy K. Milholland
Tell me your heroes and I'll tell you how your life will end up. Warren Buffet
The hero shows us what we ought to be, and we make him a hero because we wish to be what he is. Richard C. Crepeau
The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name. Daniel J. Boorstin
In our world of big names, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knowness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs. Daniel J. Boorstin
We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too. Helen Hayes
Every act of compassion makes a difference. Be a hero a better world! Robert Alan Silverstein
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. Aristotle
The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The youth, intoxicated with his admiration of a hero, fails to see, that it is only a projection of his own soul, which he admires. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our admiration is so given to dead martyrs that we have little time for living heroes. Elbert Green Hubbard
I gave my life for freedom— this I know: / For those who bade me fight had told me so. William Norman
A hero is a man who does what he can. Romain Rolland
It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar. Winston Churchill
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. Angus Wilson
History selects its heroes and its villains, and few of us resist participation either at the parade or at the guillotine. William F. Buckley, Jr.
Heroes are very human, most of them, very easily touched by praise. Sir Max Beerbohm
Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The heroic man does not pose; he leaves that for the man who wishes to be thought heroic. Elbert Hubbard
Deeds of heroism are but offered to those who, for many long years, have been heroes in obscurity and silence. Maurice Maeterlinck
Heroism does not require spiritual maturity. Abel Hermant
The history of the world is but the biography of great men. John Bartlett
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. John Bartlett
All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. John Bartlett
The greatest heroes that the world can know, / To women their original must owe. Mary Collier
Hero-worship is strongest where there is at least regard for human freedom. Herbert Spencer
One murder made a villain, Millions a hero. Beilby Porteus
You don't raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes if it's just in your eyes. Walter M. Schirra, Sr.
A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown. Tom Hanks
A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer. Novalis
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men. Plato
Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one. Baltasar Gracian
Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale. Peter S. Beagle
That is why embittered people find heroes and madmen a perennial source of fascination, for they have no fear of life or death. Both heroes and madmen are indifferent to danger and will forge ahead regardless of what other people say. Paulo Coelho
Heroes don't have the need to be known as heroes, they just do what heroes do because it is right and it must be done. Shannon A. Thompson
No, what he didn’t like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk. Terry Pratchett
Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in the end because they’ve stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and commitments. Kevin Costner
Friends are the real superheroes. They battle our worst enemies—loneliness, grief, anxiety, depression, fear, and doubt—every time they come around. Richelle E. Goodrich
Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can. Philip G. Zimbardo
It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle. H. Norman Schwarzkopf