One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.
quote by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.
quote by Lascelles Abercrombie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If I Had The Gift To Inspire You With Heroic Words
If I had the gift to inspire you with heroic words
I would tell you that I do not fear death
And that against Time and its ruins
I will stand strong to the end-
If I had the gift to inspire you with heroic words
I would tell you that at the hardest times the darkest times
One’s inner light must light the way again-
I would tell you that beyond every inhumane cruel challenge
Can come your most saving action-
If I had the gift to inspire you with heroic words
I would say that we need not ever be afraid of anyone or anything again-
But I do not have the gift and I do not have such courage-
I have only the examples of others more heroic than me
That seem to come from another universe
And have powers I never knew humans could have-
If I had the gift to inspire you with heroic words
I would say ‘Go to Others More Courageous than me
They will lead you to great victories
And with them you can sing to the end of your days
Praise and praise again for what you are'-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.
quote by Anthony Minghella
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Heroic people take risks to themselves to help others. There's nothing heroic about accepting $5 million to go out and run around chasing a ball, although you may show fortitude or those other qualities while you do it.
quote by Gregg Easterbrook
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We don't relate to her too much because you don't want the heroic character to not be heroic.
quote by Radha Mitchell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The reason progress is slow is that we always expect other men to be the heroes and to live the heroic lives. But we all have hero stuff in us. In our sphere of life we can always live more heroically and triumphantly and grow in heroic stature.
quote by Wilferd A. Peterson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In South America, I heard the 8th Symphony of Beethoven. And the young conductor thought, Beethoven must be heroic. But this is piece which shouldn't be heroic. And this was such a misunderstanding, such a deep misunderstanding.
quote by Kurt Masur
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
quote by Benjamin Disraeli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nurture your mind with great thoughts to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
quote by Benjamin Disraeli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
quote by Benjamin Disraeli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I May Well Be A Mediocrity
I MAY WELL BE A MEDIOCRITY
I may well be a mediocrity
One who tries and tries
But never really inspires-
I may well be one of the many
Called but not chosen-
I may be more another small unimportant disturbance
Than one whose work is of real meaning and value-
I may well be a mediocrity
And an ultimate nothing-
Whose words are now saved by a new technology
But will be dust forever -
I may well be a mediocrity
Despite wanting so much not to be-
I may well be a mediocrity
And probably am-
In which case I apologize
To the reader of this
If there is one
For taking your time.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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He lives out in Orchard Park. I mean, to be able to sit on the bench so patiently, for whatever part, and to be able to get up and do something, with such heroic competencies would be great.
quote by Robert Creeley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Untitled 3
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover, my mother told me as a boy
'Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.'
I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Sandro bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,
who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Dream Song 14
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) 'Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,
who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
poem by John Berryman from The Dream Songs (1969)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
quote by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mediocrity
Mediocrity is the cursed of the damned!
Failure to great men
Who set their bows
And aim skywards
To strike their starry targets.
Mediocrity is success though
For lesser mortals...............
Short sighted non-visionaries
Who always hope for lady luck
To bail them out
Of their misfortune recurrent.
So then, for many
Mediocrity is success!
To a select few......
An abject failure!
poem by Enoch John
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Epilogue To A Comedy Acted At Bath,
Ladies, this Entertainment we have shown,
Has not been rightly suited, I must own.
Heroic Virtue should have been display'd,
And Homage to heroic Virtue paid.
Low Comedy supplies but mean Delight;
Some Heroine should have grac'd our Scenes Tonight,
First Fortune's Favours, then her Frowns to feel,
Unmov'd, unshaken, on her tott'ring Wheel;
With Wisdom blest by Heav'n's peculiar Care,
Too great to be elated, or despair;
A lovely Form, and an excelling Mind,
To all that Providence ordains, resign'd;
Rever'd by All, Delight of ev'ry Eye,
Humane and humble, when exalted high;
From Princes sprung, and gloriously ally'd,
At once her Sex's, and her Country's Pride;
Whose Soul, superior to all earthly State,
Shines with new Lustre 'midst the Storms of Fate.
Then had the Audience wept her Woes anew,
And own'd the Poet was prophetic too;
Foresaw Plantagenet's imperial Race
Would such a Heroine give us, in Your Grace.
poem by Mary Barber
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I Find Us Between the Lines
I find myself between the lines
Of Marvin Bell's poem
'Prodigal? ' in his book
Of poems 'Mars Being Red'
It's like he's welcoming me
Back unconditionally
I'll put his words in brackets
So you can follow along
[I'm off to the front lines in the war to preserve
the privilege of myth-making]
That's me whenever I write
My poetic license tucked in my pants
I have [...the nerve to think
the future and remember the past...]
How does Marvin know how poems
Come to me and want to get back out
I still hink he is talking about me
In the last lines of the poem
[...They lived among the heroic
who did not want another life, and if
they erred in creating bigger-than-life characters,
they broke bread with the unspeakable,
and that is worth something.]
In case you are wondering
I think you too the other writers
Are the [heroic/who] also [did not
want another life, ...]
[and that is worth something.]
poem by Tom J. Mariani
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I Am Not Proud Of Being A Mediocrity
I AM NOT PROUD OF BEING A MEDIOCRITY
I am not proud of being a mediocrity-
But if I am
Does this mean
I should stop writing forever?
Does it mean I should spend the rest of my life
In bitter angry lament?
If I am a mediocrity
And chances are good that I am
Then perhaps I should just try to live with it
And understand
The only one who's time will be wasted
And who will give attention to all this writing I have done
Is me.
Mediocrity or not,
I can still try to be a fairly decent human being.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Philosophy of Heroism
heroes are not easy to come by
heroic acts are a different story.
heroism a flag bestowed unfurled
live in the annals of moral sacrifice.
spilled his guts saving lives of others
courage to suffer and still carry on,
most heroically did so in silence
oh hero hero who do not cry out
his or her deeds carried by waves,
of ethics moral and agreed upon,
live on by consensus annd canon
of each era, we salute you one and all
Oh dear me! is a Nazi soldier a hero
who gave his life for his comrades
of a diseased inhuman ideology
a hero too?
are not women who suffer daily
selflessly help their children grow up
not heroes of heroic heroism
suffer the yoke and burden of a warped society
are not the accidents of genetic mishaps heroes,
heroes of statistics and those of accidents,
and those of injustice heroes,
of paying the price of survival for other regarding
Oh my kind listeners come tell me one and all
is this philosophy not far fetched and lopsided
and there is no such concept called hero,
take your medals put them under your pillows
take the stories and legends, myths and magic
are the fancy of the narrator pleasant to listen
and muse of sacrifice and other regarding
acts so noble and fascinating of wonder and admire
still there are some that are more heroic if only by
comparison indelible in our memory for ages to come
poem by Shimon Weinroth
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