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The greatest and most enduring of the prophets of the Victorian era, Thomas Carlyle was prescient about the importance of heroism in defining a nation's ambition and character. First published in 1841, his On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History established a foundation for historical studies that has lost none of its importance in an age of sports, photo-ops, and cable news.

From its first pages the book recognizes the intimate connections between heroism and myth. Beginning with the legends of Odin, lord of the Nordic gods, Carlyle describes major forms that heroism can take: in god, poet, warrior, priest, prophet, and king.

"Paradise is under the shadow of swords."
Mahomet

Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,
Sugar spends to fatten slaves,
Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;
Thunderclouds are Jove's festoons,
Drooping oft in wreaths of dread Lightning-knotted round his head;
The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head-winds right for royal sails.

"This sermon was, by sacred authority, styled the author's own funeral sermon, most fitly, whether we respect the time or matter. It was preached not many days before his death, as if, having done this, there remained nothing for him to do but to die; and the matter is of death--the occasion and subject of all funeral sermons. It hath been observed of this reverend man, that his faculty in preaching continually increased, and that, as he exceeded others at first, so at last he exceeded himself.

"Ecclesiastes is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew title.

"The author represents himself as the son of David, and king over Israel in Jerusalem. The work consists of personal or autobiographic matter, at times expressed in aphorisms and maxims illuminated in terse paragraphs with reflections on the meaning of life and the best way of life. The work emphatically proclaims all the actions of man to be inherently "vain", "futile", "empty", or "meaningless," depending on translation, as the lives of both wise and foolish men end in death. While the teacher clearly promotes wisdom as a means for a well-lived earthly life, he is unable to ascribe eternal meaning to it. In light of this perceived senselessness, the preacher suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one's wife and work, which are gifts from the hand of God."

"Rappaccini's Daughter" is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1844 and collected in Mosses from an Old Manse that concerns a medical researcher in medieval Padua.

There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.

I am owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain.

"Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (also Leibnitz or von Leibniz (July 1 (June 21 Old Style) 1646 – November 14, 1716) was a German polymath who wrote primarily in Latin and French.

"Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history.

"Abu Hamed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzli (1058-1111), known as Algazel to the western medieval world, was born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia (modern day Iran). He was a Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, psychologist and mystic of Persian origin and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the history of Sufi Islamic thought."

"The Pensées (literally, "thoughts") represented a defense of the Christian religion by Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosopher and mathematician. Pascal's own religious conversion had led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées were in many ways his life's work.