John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

I'm simply saying that heroes are people whose activities, whose attitudes, and whose judgment you just think, 'Wow. That's good. That's right. That's real.'

One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.

People do not always understand the motives of sublime conduct, and when they are astonished they are very apt to think they ought to be alarmed. The truth is none are fit judges of greatness but those who are capable of it.

When God calls a man to be upright and pure and generous, he also calls him to be intelligent and skillful, and strong and brave.

A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.

It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

What would this country be like without the press prying to find out what the government is doing?

This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public. I think people who have done this and all jobs in journalism have believed that.

There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe. I don't subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially … a rough draft of history. Some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive.

The more servile a reporter is toward his sources, the more authoritative he can appear in print.

Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.

Let the world admire the supposed wisdom and valor of our great men, Perhaps they may adopt the qualities that have been ascribed to them, and thus good may be done.

When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?

The men with the muckrakes are often indispensable but only if they know when to stop raking muck.

Our job is to bash the President.

I feel that Sarkar is a realistic superman in his life.

I am just tired of writing about heroes that we're dragging down to our level, and I want to write about heroes that we want to be.

When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.

Most of the time I play heroes, guys who don't have an edge.

I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are.

Martin Luther King didn't know he was going to have a day named after him; Muhammad Ali didn't know he was going to be the people's champion. He was doing what he was doing because it was right.

I think that we want to believe in Superman.

I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values.