“Take this Hercules — this hero! Hero, indeed! What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies!”
The Labours of Hercules (1967)
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Agatha Christie 320
English mystery and detective writer 1890–1976Related quotes

“I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal, but now they think he's a hero.”
Statement to his daughter, Joan Felt; reported by his grandson, Nick Jones in a public statement of his personal family. (31 May 2005)
“Why did he get himself killed for us?" "Because he was a hero. And that is what heroes do.”
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?"

President Bill Clinton — reported in Seth Borenstein (July 23, 1998) "Astronaut Filled America's Need for a Space Hero", Detroit Free Press, p. 1A.
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Interview with Barbara Walters (15 March 1991); also quoted in his memoir It Doesn't Take a Hero : General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the Autobiography (1992), p. xiii

“He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”
Source: War and Peace

“Jack was embarrassed — never hero more,
And as he knew not what to say, he swore.”
The Island (1823), Canto III, Stanza 5.

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.