This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations tha...t we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignati...on--of all the conflicts and the sacrifices that enno ble us most. A sick room may often furnish the worth of volumes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The function of the hero in art is to inspire the reader or spectator to continue in the same spirit from where he, the hero, leav...es off. He must release the spectator's potentiality, for potentiality is the historic force behind nobility. And to do this the hero must be typical of the characters and class who at that time only need to be made aware of their heroic potentiality in order to be able to make their society juster and nobler. Bourgeois culture is no longer capable of producing heroes. On the highbrow level it only produces characters who are embodied consolations for defeat, and on the lowbrow level it produces idols--stars, TV "personalities," pin-ups. The function of the idol is the exact opposite to that of the hero. The idol is self-sufficient; the hero never is. The idol is so superficially desirable, spectacular, witty, happy that he or she merely supplies a context for fantasy and therefore, instead of inspiring, lulls. The idol is based on the appearance of perfection; but never on the striving towards it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is... created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had to kick their law into their teeth in order to save them. However I have heard that sometimes you have to deal... Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore. Or they will haul themselves and you to the trash and the fish beneath.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotio...n, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »