heroes

[marycatelli]

It is an odd thing that the words hero and heroine have in their constant use in connection with literary fiction entirely lost their meaning. A hero now means merely a young man sufficiently decent and reliable to go through a few adventures without hanging himself or taking to drink.

G. K. Chesterton

Comments

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

This is new? Gilgamesh was a blowhard and Inanna a prancing cow. It's our memories of our heroes that makes them into stainles steel icons, not what they actually did. Odds are Commodore Farragut was getting a headache from all the fretting on the bridge when he told the helmsman to damn the torpedoes.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

A hero is not distinguished by having no faults. A hero is distinguished by the magnitude of his strengths. Gilgamesh was a blowhard, but he got the job done. So did Commodore Farragut.

Apropos of which, here’s my favourite bit from Will Durant’s Caesar and Christ:

‘We cannot equate ourselves with Caesar by proving that he seduced women, bribed ward leaders, and wrote books.’

Similarly

[marycatelli]

No man is a hero to his valet. This is not because the hero is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet. -- Carlyle

[marycatelli]

Yes, but he did tell the helmsman to damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

I like this one

[coldhighmountai.livejournal.com]

A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer.

Novalis

Re: I like this one

[marycatelli]

That's a good one.