On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History (Rethinking the Western Tradition)

In the last analysis, power comes from the vigor of minds. The English were blind to this fact; the Germans were not. Germany maintained the best school system in the world. By the 1890s, she had 2.5 times as many university students per unit of population as England.628 Victorian England, like today’s United States, maintained the illusion of pros

What is socially humdrum is produced by what is individually heroic; and a city is made not merely of citizens but knight–errants.

But with them as with us, the human family itself began to break down under servile organisation and the herding of the towns. The urban mob became enlightened; that is it lost the mental energy that could create myths. All round the circle of the Mediterranean cities the people mourned for the loss of gods and were consoled with gladiators.