The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. – Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyper Reality, 1986

[A] morning-land full of immeasurable hopes encircled him; he stripped his breast, threw himself all aglow into the dripping grass, washed (but not with any higher purpose than girls have) his firm face with liquid June-snow… – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography,