Neither fear nor courage saves us.Unnatural vices Are fathered by our heroism.Virtues Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  'Gerontion'.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted and when to be obeyed.

-Hawthorne, Nathaniel
  The Blithedale Romance, ch.2.

   Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were wisely considerate of things at large, would ever embark upon any work much more considerable than a halfpenny post-card? Who would project a serial novel, afterThackeray and Dickens had each fallen in mid-course? Who would find heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of death?

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
Virginibus Puerisque,'AesTriplex'.

I don't hate men, I just wish they'd try harder. Theyall want to be heroes and all we want is for them to stay at home and help with the housework and the kids. That's not the kind of heroism they enjoy.

-Winterson,Jeanette
  Sexing the Cherry.