"We can all learn from the islands of extraordinariness in our
midst." - Howard Gardner
"We cannot all be great, but we can always attach ourselves to
something great. " - Harry Emerson Fosdick
"Let knowledge grow from more to more, but more of reverence in
us dwell. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Nature never intended man to be a low, groveling creature. From
the moment of his birth, she implants in him an inextinguishable desire
for the noble and the good." - Longinus
"I doubt that human beings can live without some expanded ideal
of behavior, some palpable image of the spaciousness of man." -
Robert Penn Warren
"The hero cannot be common, nor the common the heroic." -
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The true test of a great man - that at least, which must secure
his place among the highest order of great men - is, his having been
in advance of his age. " - Seneca
"In picking out from history our heroes each one of us may best
fortify and inspire what creative energy may lie in the soul. This is
the best justification of hero worship. " - William James
"The faculty of love, of admiration, is to be regarded as the sign
and measure of high souls. Ridicule, on the other hand, is a small faculty.
" - Thomas Carlyle
"... there resides in us the motivating and civilizing force of
the human spirit. It gives us the ability to think courageous thoughts,
do courageous deeds, and give courageous sustenance to our fellows.
I predict that it will one day be the subject of scientific research
and validating experience." - Sherwin Nuland
"The world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best
things " - Matthew Arnold
"It may be a reflection of our times that we cannot see unvarnished
heroism without noticing the baseness that often lies just below the
surface. " - Zachary Karbell
"In generous ages, the bad is forgotten, the good is remembered.
. . ungenerous ages leave us malicious libels..."- James Froude
"Who had made the nation great? Not its heroes but its households."
-Sarah Hale