Hero Quotes - page 74
In a way, these people have a point. My family name is only Escudero. I don't have the same pedigree of Quezon, Roxas, or Osmeña families, of those who have become presidents, heroes or wealthy philanthropists. The Senate is the highest elected position that someone from my family has ever reached, and even this, I never imagined I might achieve.
Francis Escudero
McCain will be remembered as a war hero, American patriot and public servant who was conservative but unafraid to buck his party from time to time. He will be remembered for clashing with Trump and suffering for it politically among members of his own party. He will be remembered for picking Sarah Palin and later regretting it. He will be remembered for making the campaign finance system worse while trying to make it better. He will be remembered for being entangled in the Keating Five ethics scandal. He will be remembered for being tortured, and then leading the opposition to certain interrogation tactics during the Global War on Terror. But no matter how you remember him or what you think of him, John McCain has earned the right to speak his mind and to have anyone at his funeral he wants. Feel free to disagree with McCain, but lay off the vitriolic, tribal attacks. He suffered mightily for your right to do so.
John McCain
Earlier this week, I wrote about the health-care bill, specifically John McCain's return to D.C. to vote on it. I wrote about how this return, following his diagnosis of brain cancer, allowed him the opportunity to be the hero who delivers us from the evil that is a health-care bill that will take health care away from millions of Americans. Then he got back to D.C. and voted to allow the bill to move forward. It was a strange move, and the latest in what has appeared to be a series of heel turns for McCain. But last night, he actually goddamn mavericked and-sorry, Drew-it was pretty damn great.
John McCain
John McCain was a beloved colleague. He was a patriot. He was truly an American hero. He had remarkable intellect. He had an iron will, most certainly. He had unquestionable integrity and courage that was absolutely unwavering. When I think about John and how John approached issues, John was one who did what he thought was right. When he thought he was right, there wasn't much arguing with him--he was right. Even then, we would engage, we would go back and forth, and I think oftentimes it was those arguments that caused us to either gain greater respect or perhaps greater fear, depending on where you were in the process. John was one of those guys who favored straight talk. I don't think he would have any hard feelings about any of us describing our relationship with him over the years. We didn't always agree, and sometimes we didn't even get along, but the truth was, John McCain would always make sure you knew where he stood.
John McCain
I had the same questions for Superman as I did for God: If he was so powerful, why didn't he deal with some real problems? Why didn't he stop wars, feed the starving in Ethiopia, cure cancer? At least God had the Church to do His PR work for Him - if you can buy their reasoning, they have any number of explanations ranging from how the troubles of this life build character to that inarguable catchall, "God's will.” And the crap in this life sure makes heaven look good.
When I was growing up, the writers and artists of Superman never even tried to deal with the problem. And since they didn't, I could only see Superman as a monster, not a hero. I couldn't believe his battles with criminals, superpowered geniuses and the like.
I never believed in God either.
Charles de Lint
These critics with the illusions they've created about artists - it's like idol worship. They only like people when they're on their way up ... I cannot be on the way up again. ... What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I'm not interesting in being a dead (expletive) hero. ... So forget 'em, forget 'em."
John Lennon
No matter how hard the enemy tried to take Tula and thus open the road to Mosocw from the south, he was unable to do so in the course of November. The city held out like an invulnerable fortress. Tula tied down the entire right flank of the German forces. When the enemy ultimately decided to by-pass Tula, Guderian's army was forced to split its forces, losing the operational effectiveness provided by tactical concentration. That is why Tula and its citizens played such an outstanding role in the defense of Moscow.
Tula, ancient city of Russian gunmakers, thus became an unconquerable outpost of the capital thanks to the solidarity and self-sacrifice of its citizens, who fought with or helped our soldiers in every possible way. I don't think I would be far wrong if I said that the glory given to Moscow as a hero city belongs also to Tula and its people.
Georgy Zhukov
Corregidor surrendered last night. Poor Wainwright! He did the fighting... [MacArthur] got such glory as the public could find... MacArthur's tirades, to which TJ and I so often listened to in Manila, would now sound as silly to the public as they then did to us. But he's a hero! Yah.
Douglas MacArthur
Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection, that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.
Thomas Paine
The U.S. Navy hated MacArthur, really hated him. Early in the Pacific War it began agitating for an overall command in the area, the idea being to get MacArthur and his troops under its control. Believing Marshall to share their antipathy, the Navy enlisted his support and was delighted when he appeared to give it. "But on one condition," he said. "If we're going to have an overall commander in the Pacific, there isn't any question about it, you will have to pick MacArthur- on the basis of pure competence alone." The Navy abruptly abandoned the idea. Later, when the Navy wished to bypass the liberation of the Philippines in favor of operations against Formosa, it was Marshall who again intervened to insist MacArthur be allowed to fulfill his pledge to the Philippine people, to whom he had vowed, "I shall return." He was given the go-ahead to do so, and, of course, was hailed as the greatest hero of the Pacific war.
Douglas MacArthur
With his flamboyant headgear, his sunglasses and corn cob pipe, he looked like an actor playing the role of a great general. He also had the sort of press an actor likes; he arranged that, in part, by keeping his subordinates as anonymous as possible. But the truth was that Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific, was a great general. He had one of the most distinguished military careers on record (top of his class at West Point, a hero in the first war, Army Chief of Staff), and it is doubtful that anyone in any of the services knew more about the Pacific theater. Nonetheless, the war that would be waged to return him to the Philippines, as he had promised, would be a Navy war, and [three admirals] - Nimitz, King, and Halsey - would have every bit as much to do with the strategy and tactics of winning that war as he had.
Douglas MacArthur
I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came? - till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for the benefit of his fellow-man.
Henry David Thoreau
My dad was our rock. Although he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his early 30s, he was our provider, our champion, our hero. As he got sicker, it got harder for him to walk, it took him longer to get dressed in the morning. But if he was in pain, he never let on. He never stopped smiling and laughing - even while struggling to button his shirt, even while using two canes to get himself across the room to give my mom a kiss. He just woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.
Michelle Obama
Mr. MacDonald...said I promised to make this a land fit for heroes. I ask Mr. MacDonald if he will point out the place, time, and occasion when I promised to make this a land fit for heroes. I say quite frankly that I may have my defects, but I am no braggard. If I boasted I was going to make this a land fit for heroes I would be a sheer blusterer. No one man can do that and I never promised it. What I did do, speaking after the War, on a purely non-political occasion at Wolverhampton, where there were Labour, Conservative, and Liberal adherents, was to refer to the great heroism of our troops and say, "Let us all do our best to make this a land fit for heroes to live in." That was not a pledge I gave; it was an appeal.
David Lloyd George
Edward Snowden is a true hero of our time. He does not seek fame - only justice. The entire interview with Rafael Correa is full of ideas that challenge all of us –whether American, Swiss or world citizens. I cannot summarize it here, but one idea runs through the interview as a humanistic, philosophical red thread: Ethics comes before legality. The rule of law must be the rule of justice, not the fetishism of law.
Alfred de Zayas
far be it from me to say or insinuate a word of disparagement against such characters as Hampden, Elliot, Pym; whom I believe to have been right worthy and useful men. I have read diligently what books and documents about them I could come at;-with the honestest wish to admire, to love and worship them like Heroes; but I am sorry to say, if the real truth must be told, with very indifferent success! At bottom, I found that it would not do. They are very noble men, these; step along in their stately way, with their measured euphemisms, philosophies, parliamentary eloquences, Ship-moneys, Monarchies of Man; a most constitutional, unblamable, dignified set of men. But the heart remains cold before them.
Thomas Carlyle
Men do reverence men. Men do worship in that 'one temple of the world,' as Novalis calls it, the Presence of a Man! Hero- worship, true and blessed, or else mistaken, false and accursed, goes on everywhere and everywhen. In this world there is one godlike thing, the essence of all that was or ever will be of godlike in this world: the veneration done to Human Worth by the hearts of men. Hero-worship, in the souls of the heroic, of the clear and wise,-it is the perpetual presence of Heaven in our poor Earth: when it is not there, Heaven is veiled from us; and all is under Heaven's ban and interdict, and there is no worship, or worthship, or worth or blessedness in the Earth any more!-.
Thomas Carlyle
