“It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.”

— Leo Tolstoy , book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Leo Tolstoy 456

Russian writer 1828–1910

Jerry Williams (singer)

Jerry Williams talking about Fidel Castro in an interview in the Swedish paper Proletären, number 48, 1985. Translated from Swedish.

“This is my principal objection to life, I think: It is too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Deadeye Dick

Source: Deadeye Dick (1982), p. 6

“When you die it's the same as if everybody else did too.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: "Why Are They Laughing In Those Cages?", in Travels in Hyperreality : Essays‎ (1986), Ch. III : The Gods of the Underworld, p. 122
Context: The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed.
Context: The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed. He doesn't boast of his own death or of others'. But he does not repent. He suffers and keeps his mouth shut; if anything, others then exploit him, making him a myth, while he, the man worthy of esteem, was only a poor creature who reacted with dignity and courage in an event bigger than he was.