We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.

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About Helen Hayes

Portrait of Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes MacArthur (née Brown; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress. Often referred to as the "First Lady of American Theatre", she was the second person and first woman to win the EGOT (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award), and the...

More quotations from Helen Hayes

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.

Age is not important unless you're a cheese.

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.

I cry out for order and find it only in art.

More quotations tagged with “heroism”

Most people aren't appreciated enough, and the bravest things we do in our lives are usually known only to ourselves. No one throws ticker tape on the man who chose to be faithful to his wife, on the lawyer who didn't take the drug money, on the daughter who held her tongue again and again. All this anonymous heroism.

—Peggy Noonan

heroism law money appreciation faithfulness

To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man—these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity.… History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own.

—Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

history society heroism dignity leadership surrender decision submission hero worship

At the boy's level, hero worship gravitates toward the doer of spectacular deeds; on the average adult level, toward the wielder of power; and in the eyes of a more critical judgment, toward idealism and moral qualities.

—Dixon Wecter

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Heroes are created by popular demand, sometimes out of the scantiest materials, or none at all.

—Gerald W. Johnson

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One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

humanity heroism decency behavior

History

17 Jan 2015 Added