
“He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”
Source: War and Peace
Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 20
Context: "We irritated him, he told me. Why did he get himself killed for us?" "Because he was a hero. And that is what heroes do. You understand?"
“He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”
Source: War and Peace
Speech at the Hatch Memorial Shell, Boston, Massachusetts (7 June 1945), quoted in The Last Days of Patton (1981), p. 85, by Ladislas Farago and The Patton Papers: 1940-1945 (1974), p. 721, edited by Martin Blumenson.
Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 97
Speech at Queen's College, City University of New York (March 12, 1975). "The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage", ch. 5, published in Our Blood (1976).
“I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.”
Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Variant translation: A hero is one who does what he can. The others don't.
As quoted in A Book of French Quotations (1963) by Norbert Guterman, p. 365
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)
Context: You are a vain fellow. You want to be a hero. That is why you do such silly things. A hero!... I don't quite know what that is: but, you see, I imagine that a hero is a man who does what he can. The others do not do it.
As quoted in Celebrities in Hell (2002) by Warren Allen Smith, p. 98
You Enter Germany (1967); cited from Aufsätze, Kritiken, Reden (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1967) p. 278. Translation: "You are Now Entering Germany", in Leila Vennewitz (trans.) Missing Persons and Other Essays (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1994) p. 48.