“The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Theodore Dalrymple96

English doctor and writer 1949

Gregory Bateson book Steps to an Ecology of Mind

Source: Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972), p. 494

“Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"The Feast of Nemesis"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action in mind.”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

"The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert", in Mother Earth News No. 69 (May/June 1981)
General sources

“There are those… who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Speech at the Innauguration of the Aga Khan Baug, Versova, India (17 January 1983) http://ismaili.net/speech/s830117.html  <br class="br">Context: There are those... who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot. Unless these unfortunates can be touched with the spark which ignites the spirit of individual enterprise and determination, they will only sink back into renewed apathy, degradation and despair. It is for us, who are more fortunate, to provide that spark.

“Those who struggle to change the world see themselves as noble, even tragic figures. Yet most of those who work for world betterment are not rebels against the scheme of things. They seek consolation for a truth they are too weak to bear. At bottom, their faith that the world can be transformed by human will is a denial of their own mortality.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

As it is: The consolation of action (p. 193)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

“The passive idler of all men in the world is the most difficult to please. Those who do the least themselves are always the severest critics upon the noble achievements of others.”

Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 345.

“Comparison with those who are better must never be taken as a form of devaluation, but an example for improving oneself.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il confronto con chi è migliore non deve mai essere preso come una forma di svalutazione, ma come un esempio per migliorarsi.
Source: prevale.net