Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation.
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PrefaceNorman Mailer
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This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness.
John Cowper Powys
The contest will continue--the contest between those who see a monolithic world and those who believe in diversity--but it should be a contest in leadership and responsibility instead of destruction, a contest in achievement instead of intimidation. Speaking for the United States of America, I welcome such a contest. For we believe that truth is stronger than error--and that freedom is more enduring than coercion. And in the contest for a better life, all the world can be a winner.
John F. Kennedy
The gods spend the wealth the universe gathers, they scan the wonders and fling them to nothingness. That’s why they’re the gods! I told you they were devils.
Fritz Leiber
The greatest hero of Greece was Hercules. He was a personage of quite another order from the great hero of Athens, Theseus. He was what all Greece, except Athens, most admired. The Athenians were different from the other Greeks, and their hero therefore was different. Theseus was, of course, bravest of the brave, as all heroes are; but, unlike other heroes, he was as compassionate as he was brave, and a man of great intellect as well as great bodily strength. It was natural that the Athenians should have such a hero, because they valued thought and ideas, as no other part of the country did. In Theseus their ideal was embodied. But Hercules embodied what the rest of Greece most valued. His qualities were those the Greeks in general honored and admired. Except for unflinching courage, they were not those that distinguished Theseus. Hercules was the strongest man on earth, and he had the supreme self-confidence magnificent physical strength gives. He considered himself on an equality with the gods.
Edith Hamilton
The gods of one age become the devils of the age to follow. The priests look forward to the age to come and see only the end of the world.
Lon Milo DuQuette
Mailer, Norman
Maimonides
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