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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 3/7/2009
Posts: 32,889
Neurons: 97,845
Location: Inside Farlex computers
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 The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow. Washington Irving (1783-1859)
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Rank: Member
Joined: 3/27/2014
Posts: 57
Neurons: 52,059
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
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A true statement is most cases but it depends on the enduring nature of the hero's work or action.
There are a number of heroes out there who we have remembered through yearly holidays, statues or just there selfless acts were so widely felt that they live on.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 3/26/2013
Posts: 3,428
Neurons: 343,229
Location: Minsk, Minskaya Voblasts', Belarus
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The funny thing is that not only heroes were degenerated, but also their enemies... Perhaps, these are related processes.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 7/12/2014
Posts: 12
Neurons: 3,969,344
Location: Milano, Lombardy, Italy
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Credette Cimabue ne la pittura
tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,
sì che la fama di colui è scura.
Così ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido
la gloria de la lingua; e forse è nato
chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà del nido.
Non è il mondan romore altro ch'un fiato
di vento, ch'or vien quinci e or vien quindi,
e muta nome perché muta lato.
Dante's Comedy - Purgatorio: Canto XI, 94-102
In painting Cimabue thought that he
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame is growing dim.
So has one Guido from the other taken
The glory of our tongue, and he perchance
Is born, who from the nest shall chase them both.
Naught is this mundane rumour but a breath
Of wind, that comes now this way and now that,
And changes name, because it changes side.
(Longfellow's translation)
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 2/4/2014
Posts: 8,431
Neurons: 6,948,110
Location: Bogotá, Bogota D.C., Colombia
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Context from : "Westminster Abbey" - The Complete Works of Washington Irving: Short StoriesI endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of death; his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow. Our fathers, says Sir Thomas Brown, find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/irvng022.pdf
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Posts: 535
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Location: Phoenix, Arizona, United States
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So few today unless you count the  interest people
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 11/25/2014
Posts: 655
Neurons: 76,546
Location: Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires F.D., Argentina
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Success must be one of the shortest-lived experiences in man's life
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Posts: 1,355
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Location: Kolkata, Bengal, India
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Hmmm....it's obvious isn't it 
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 10/3/2012
Posts: 2,242
Neurons: 248,792
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Daemon wrote:The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow. Washington Irving (1783-1859) Such is the fickle impress of the out-of-ordinary: it only lasts as long as the ordinary mind can hold it.
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