Heroes and heroines on the stage, and still more in the cinema, set too high a standard to the young; it is scarcely to be hoped that life will be so adventurous or so fitted with poetic justice in reality as it is in romance. When young people realise this, their imitation is apt to become confined to a world of imagination, with the result that the vivid part of their life is in daydreams, not in reality. Even disaster is better than such a divorce between emotion and action.
Source: "On imitating heroes" [From: Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935, v.1 (1975)]
More info.: https://russell-j.com/HEROES.HTM