What It Takes To Be A Hero Quotes & Sayings

A hero is someone who, for the general good, takes the initiative to solve an ambiguous problem. — James Marcus Bach

As masculine self-consciousness grows stronger, the stage of matriarchy is followed by that of division. Symptomatic of this transition period is the twin-brother motif in mythology, which expresses the mutual affinity of opposites. This division turns destructively against itself in self-mutilation and suicide. As we saw, in uroboric and matriarchal castration the will of the Great Mother was paramount. But the centroversion tendency which underlies the ego-hero's struggle for self-preservation and which first takes the form of anxiety, advances beyond the passive, narcissistic stage and turns into resistance, defiance, and aggression directed against the Great Mother, as illustrated mythologically in the story of Hippolytus. — Erich Neumann

That first meeting - the one where the hero and heroine start the slow burn that takes the whole story to turn into true love - is the single most important part of the whole book. Nail it, and you've won yourself readers. — Sarah MacLean

Life is like a thunderstorm, Sunny. You will lay in happiness one second, be torn asunder the next. What makes you who are is what you do when that thunderstorm arrives. You must gaze into that thunderstorm and stand up to it no matter where it takes you.
For they will see you as I see you, a hero. — Laura-Louise Slattery

I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on! continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice. — P.G. Wodehouse

Neil Armstrong today takes his place in the hall of heroes. The moon will miss its first son of earth. — Mitt Romney

If "Manners maketh man," as someone said
Then he's the hero of the day
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself, no matter what they say."
(Englishman in New York) — Sting

My lover is dead.
And they think I killed him.
I'm running rogue.
Hell bent on both revenge and redemption. Whatever it takes, I'm going to finish a job that began nine months ago. An unauthorized assignment that turned horribly, devastatingly wrong. My miscalculation.
My fault.
My heart left shattered into incomplete pieces which will never wholly fit back together again.
But first I have to outsmart my former organization and the hired killer they've sent after me; a ghost from my past who knows my every move, who's been inside my head, my heart, my dreams and memories: Jaxson.
I'm the traitor, Kylie. The rogue mercenary, Jaxon's newest assignment. And this is our love story. — Michele Mannon

But maybe, that's the point. That there are no guarentees. There are no happy endings. But you show up anyway. You don't give up. You NEVER give up. Maybe that's what it takes to be a HERO. -Billy Kaplan — Allan Heinberg

Whoa," says Michael.
"What is it?" I ask.
Michael shakes his head in disbelief. He points at the screen. "Wil Wheaton saw an I Kill the Mockingbird flyer and tweeted about it."
"Wil Wheaton?" I say.
"Wil Wheaton!" Michael says again. "Wil Wheaton!"
"Who is Wil Wheaton?"
"Wil Wheaton!"
"Michael," says Elena, "no matter how many times you say his name we still don't know who you're talking about."
"He's a gamer!" Michael takes the mouse from Elena and clicks on Wil Wheaton's profile. "He's a total geek hero! He's an author and an actor. He used to be on STAR TREK."
I point to the description that Wil Wheaton has written about himself. "It says here that he's just a guy."
"Just a guy who used to be on STAR TREK!" says Michael. — Paul Acampora

It only takes a second to be someone's first hero. — Robert J. Braathe

We tell specific stories about ourselves to ourselves and we're all the heroes of our own lives. But you live through certain experiences with other people, and sometimes they have very different takes on what happened. — James Franco

The people who keep coping, keep trying, no matter how many blows Fate takes at them. Nobody'll make a song about them, but they're heroes all the same. — Mercedes Lackey

It's because of my grandfather that I became a Young Avenger. But it's hard sometimes, to be a black kid carrying a name like "Patriot". I remember talking to Captain America about before he died, and he explained what Patriotism meant to him...
It wasn't about blindly supporting your government. It was about knowing what your country could be, what it should be... And trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it failed. I remember he said: "There's noting patriotic about corruption or cover-ups... or defending them. But exposing them, well, that takes a hero. — Ed Brubaker

Selling wine is all about sizing people up, and it takes a certain amount of chutzpah. The tableside bottle sell is a very funny thing - you take a look at the guy's blazer, what kind of shoes he's wearing, what kind of broad he's with. Is he trying to be a hero? — Joe Bastianich

Zorro also is part of the bandido tradition, most closely associated with the possibly mythical Joaquin Murrieta and the historical Tiburcio Vasquez. As well as these local California legendary figures, Zorro is an American version of Robin Hood and similar heroes whose stories blend fiction and history, thus moving Zorro into the timeless realm of legend. The original story takes place in the Romantic era, but, more important, Zorro as Diego adds an element of poetry and sensuality, and as Zorro the element of sexuality, to the traditional Western hero. Not all Western heroes are, as D. H. Lawrence said of Cooper's Deerslayer, "hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer," but in the Western genre the hero and villain more often than not share these characteristics. What distinguishes Zorro is a gallantry, a code of ethics, a romantic sensibility, and most significant, a command of language and a keen intelligence and wit. — Robert E. Morsberger

After all, you don't have to be a sword-wielding Gryffindor to be a hero; sometimes, all it takes is having your heart in the right place. We — J.K. Rowling

It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief. — Mary McCarthy

Anyone can slay a dragon ... but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero. — Brian Andreas

The hero never rests fights every breath. When he dies god takes him. — Nadair Desmar

In Trout's novel, The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank, the hero is on a space ship two hundred miles long and sixty-two miles in diameter. He gets a realistic novel out of the branch library in his neighborhood. He reads about sixty pages of it, and then he takes it back. The librarian asks him why he doesn't like it, and he says to her, 'I already know about human beings. — Kurt Vonnegut

In the hero stories, the call to go on a journey takes the form of a loss, an error, a wound, an unexplainable longing, or a sense of a mission. When any of these happens to us, we are being summoned to make a transition. It will always mean leaving something behind, ... The paradox here is that loss is a path to gain. — David Richo

Kosciusko. - The hero of Poland once wished to send some bottles of good wine to a clergyman at Solothurn; and as he hesitated to trust them by his servant, lest he should smuggle a part, he gave the commission to a young man of the name of Zeltner, and desired him to take the horse which he himself usually rode. On his return, young Zeltner said that he never would ride his horse again unless he gave him his purse at the same time. Kosciusko enquiring what he meant, he answered, "As soon as a poor man on the road takes off his hat and asks charity, the horse immediately stands still, and will not stir till something is given to the petitioner; and as I had no money about me, I was obliged to feign giving something, in order to satisfy the horse." Mysterious — Various

The only difference between your average man and a hero is that the hero figures out what to do before it's too late,' He nudged her aside and, with a few pulls, filled her bucket. 'Then he has the nerve to go on and do it.'
Betsy leaned back as if she was trying to get a complete view of him from head to toe. 'Is that all it takes to make a good hero?'
'One more thing. A hero always comes back for his lady. — Regina Jennings

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth - that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word. And even those who are neither leaders nor heroes must arm themselves with that steadfastness of heart which can brave even the crumbling of all hopes. This is necessary right now, or else men will not be able to attain even that which is possible today. — Max Weber

There was a moment, however, when the King and I were looking directly into each other's eyes, and in that instant I had a revelation that takes much longer to explain than to experience. Here am I, I reflected, being decorated as a hero, and in the eyes of everybody here I am indeed a hero; but I know that my heroic act was rather a dirty job I did when I was dreadfully frightened; I could just as easily have muddled it and been ingloriously killed. But it doesn't much matter, because people seem to need heroes; so long as I don't lose sight of the truth, it might as well be me as anyone else. And here before me stands a marvellously groomed little man who is pinning a hero's medal on me because some of his forebears were Alfred the Great, and Charles the First, and even King Arthur, for anything I know to the contrary. But I shouldn't be surprised if inside he feels as puzzled about the fate that brings him here as I. — Robertson Davies

Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he s not he s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared.
Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some it takes an hour. For some it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor his sense of duty to his country and his innate manhood.
Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. — George S. Patton Jr.

Today, continue to nourish your dreams. Hold fast to your vision and do something every day to bring it into manifestation. Everything is possible in God, because God is the infinite Possibility within everything. Know that you are God's Beloved in whom God is pleased. Never giving up on yourself is what it takes to be your own hero. — Michael Beckwith

Hero!? Forget it! We're Pirates! I love heroes but I don't wanna become one! Do you even know what it takes to be a Hero!?
Lets say you have some meat okay? Now a Pirate would chomp down on that bad boy, but a hero would share it with everyone!! I want to eat meat!""
Hero!? Forget it! We're Pirates! I love heroes but I don't wanna become one! Do you even know what it takes to be a Hero!?
Lets say you have some meat okay? Now a Pirate would chomp down on that bad boy, but a hero would share it with everyone!! I want to eat meat!" - Monkey D. Luffy — Eiichiro Oda

Sometimes all a breathing attack takes is reassurance. What Pete thought. And a shot of prednisone. And two huffs of the red inhaler, then the white one. And a big burly doctor who looked a little like Ernest Hemingway to place his hand on an arm and keep repeating, "Just a reaction to the altitude, maybe the mist tonight and woodsmoke combined. You'll be fine, fine. There now." And a Latvian in a bathrobe - Oh God! Pete noticed now that she had bare feet! She had not even stopped to put on shoes - a barefoot Latvian to intone, "So beautiful, you really look like an angel," and a one-armed hero who reeks of cigarettes and pot to keep saying happily, "Fuckin' A, look, look at that, breathing fine now, fuckin' A. — Peter Heller

It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle. — Norman Schwarzkopf

FEARLESS is a vivid account of one man's journey from all-American boy to all-American hero. Blehm's writing takes you beyond the battlefield and right to the heart of the personal battles, sacrifices, and triumphs of one of America's elite warriors. Anyone looking for an inspiring story of inner strength and courage will be richly rewarded by this book. — Eric Greitens

It takes a hell of a lot of courage to walk into your own story, but to be the hero of your own life you have to rescue yourself. — Shannon L. Alder

Sometimes all it takes is a kind word of encouragement to get your heroes back on the right path. — Nancy Duarte

I believe that everyone is a hero, a leader, a volunteer, a teacher and a champion of change. All we need to do is acknowledge and understand this and then help others to also understand the same. That's all it takes to be a hero, a leader, a volunteer, a teacher and a champion of change. — Jeroninio Almeida

You must be practically a hero to retain your composure in the midst of universal panic. But just try to scream and tear around when everyone else is going about his business
that takes a lot of audacity. — Lidiya Ginzburg

The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a coming and a returning. — Joseph Campbell

The most interesting heroes have a bit of villainy to them, and the most interesting villains have a certain bit of heroism in them, ... I think (Alan Shore) intends to do the right thing, but his view of the world is very different so, to get to the right place, he sometimes takes a path that goes through a very dark forest. — James Spader

My generation, we were kind of raised on the super-cool, "I can handle anything" with a gun in his hand hero. Any situation you throw at him, he can handle it - with catchphrases. It was very cool. But Joss Whedon's version of a hero doesn't always win. He loses more than he wins, and when he wins, the victories are tiny, but he takes 'em. "That's a victory! I call that a victory!" It's a tiny victory - he takes it, and that's what he walks away with. And that's something I can actually relate to. — Amy Pascale

That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end. — Lise Hand

I'm still angry with him, but I follow him through the drizzle anyway. Because this is Levi. This is my hero. And you always follow your heroes, even when you're mad, even when you'd rather punch them in the mouth. That's how trust works. It's blind and unconditional and it takes you places you can't reach by yourself.
Just like love. — Chelsea Fine

But a day later, it was 'Prof Tim says low fat is a fraud,' when he was eating a tub of yoghurt at his desk for breakfast. He let that slide too. Until the following morning, when he and a packet of Simba salt-and-vinegar crisps walked out of the morning parade, and Mbali said, 'Prof Tim says it's the carbs that make you fat, you know,' and he couldn't take it any more and snapped: 'Prof Tim who?' And so she told him. Everything. About this Prof Tim Noakes who once got the whole fokken world eating pasta, and then he did an about face and said, no, carbs are what's making everyone obese, and he wrote a book of recipes, and now he was Mbali's big hero, 'Because it takes a great man to admit that he was wrong', and she had already lost so much weight and she had so much more energy, and it wasn't all that hard, she didn't miss the carbs because now she ate cauliflower rice and cauliflower mash and flax seed bread. Flax seed bread, for fuck's sake. — Deon Meyer

I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them. — Patrick Stump

They flew her," Matt pointed out. "Sure they did - and my hat's off to them. But it takes heroes to fly a box as primitive as this and I'm not the hero type. — Robert A. Heinlein

Where are the heroes and the saints, who keep a clear vision of man's greatest gift, his freedom, to oppose not only the dictatorship of the proletariat, but also the dictatorship of the benevolent state, which takes possession of the family, and of the indigent, and claims our young for war? — Dorothy Day

To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero who can manage his own fear. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes