A Quote by Ursula K. Le Guin

The backside of heroism is often rather sad; women and servants know that. They know also that the heroism may be no less real for that. But achievement is smaller than men think. What is large is the sky, the earth, the sea, the soul.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Quote Topics

Achievement Also Backside Earth Heroism Know Large Less May Men Often Rather Real Sad Sea Servants Sky Smaller Soul Than Think Women

Quote Author

Ursula K. Le Guin
American - Novelist
October 21, 1929 - January 22, 2018

We are the planet, fully as much as water, earth, fire and air are the planet, and if the planet survives, it will only be through heroism. Not occasional heroism, a remarkable instance of it here and there, but constant heroism, systematic heroism, heroism as governing principle.

Russell Banks

Freedom of a nation cannot be won by solitary acts of heroism though they may be of the true type, never by heroism so called.

Mahatma Gandhi

Quiet heroism or youthful idealism, or both? What do we know? That life without heroism and idealism is not worth living - or that either can be fatal?

Erich Segal

Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh - over fear...Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Few of us will do the spectacular deeds of heroism that spread themselves across the pages of our newspapers in big black headlines. But we can all be heroic in the little things of everyday life. We can do the helpful things, say the kind words, meet our difficulties with courage and high hearts, stand up for the right when the cost is high, keep our word even though it means sacrifice, be a giver instead of a destroyer. Often this quiet, humble heroism is the greatest heroism of all.

Wilferd Peterson

One of the jobs of a writer is to add nuance and ambiguity to that straight line that people often draw to very specific kinds of heroism. Most of us don't get to be Snooki. For most of us heroism has to be in our everyday lives.

John Green

Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather thanachievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings.

Phyllis Rose

There is nothing man desires more than a heroic life: there is nothing less common to men than heroism.

Jacques Maritain

Motherhood is heroism. It is God-given, and yet men treat women as though of similar common clay, when in fact they are but lower than the angels.

Gutzon Borglum

love is thicker than forget more thinner than recall more seldom than a wave is wet more frequent than to fail it is most mad and moonly and less it shall unbe than all the sea which only is deeper than the sea love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky

e. e. cummings

When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres. The impossibility of the heroism undermines the love, even if it is real. This double failure is what produces the sense of utter despair that we see in modern man... Love, then, is seen a religious problem

Ernest Becker

Heroism--that is the disposition of a man who aspires to a goal compared to which he himself is wholly insignificant. Heroism is the good will to self-destruction.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Washington politicians think that government can make better decisions than you and me. But we know better. We know it's smaller, less intrusive government that will lead to real economic prosperity. We know it's business-friendly policies, not more red tape, that will create real growth.

Brad Wenstrup

I am well aware that there is such a great craving in man for heroism and the heroic, and that hero worship forms not a small motif in his complex. I am also aware that, unless man believes in his own heroism and the heroism of others, he cannot achieve much or great things. We must, however, take proper care that we do not make a fetish of this cult of hero-worship, for then we will turn ourselves into votaries of false gods and prophets.