The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool the truest heroism is to resist the doubt and the profoundest wisdom to know when it ought to be resisted and when it be obeyed.

I was in uniform for four years and I know that heroism doesn't occur from taking orders but rather from people who through their own willpower and strength are willing to sacrifice their lives for an idea.

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice heroism war politics and family struggle.

The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so.

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.

Heroism on command senseless violence and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty that makes human nature rise above itself in acts of bravery and heroism.

What people adore about superhero movies is the signal quality of the Christopher Nolan films - their complete lack of irony when it comes to the portrayal of heroism and the need for heroes to confront evil.