“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

— George Orwell, book 1984

Source: 1984

Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

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George Orwell473

English author and journalist 1903–1950

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“To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.”

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“You who survive these times must not forget. Forget neither the good nor the bad… I want this to be known: that there were no nameless heroes here; that they were people with names, faces, longings and hopes, and that the pain of the very last of them was no less than the pain of the very first… Man's duty does not end with this fight, for to be a man will continue to demand a heroic heart as long as mankind is not quite human.”

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Cited in: John Fraser (1985) "Prayers, parades in Berlin," The Globe and Mail, 8 May 1985; Cited in: Julius Lukasiewicz (1994) Ignorance Explosion: Understanding Industrial Civilization. p. 61.