Helio Gracie is promoted as saint by the Gracies and was also promoted as such by himself when he was alive.
He does deserve credit for technical innovation, but he'd also present himself as morally elevated, saying things like
"The jiu-jitsu I created isn’t for competition. It’s for personal use to improve your confidence, whether you’re an executive, a woman or a child." (That's the three major kinds of people, BTW.) And also on the purity (and pimp ethic?) front:
"I never loved any woman because love is a weakness, and I don't have weaknesses."
It turns out, though, that
he didn't always solve problems by being above it all, or even with Gracie Jiu-Jitsu:
A dispute between Gracie's brother Carlos and Manoel Rufino dos Santos worsened after Dos Santos won a public bout against Carlos. Subsequently, the conflict then moved to the newspapers, where Rufino criticized Carlos's skill and dismissed his jiu-jitsu credentials, leading Carlos, George and Hélio Gracie to assault him in front of his teaching place at the Tijuca Tênis Clube on October 18. They hit him repeatedly with a steel box and immobilized him for Carlos to apply an armlock, dislocating Rufino's shoulder so badly that it needed surgery.[2][5] The brothers were arrested and were convicted to two years and a half in prison for assault, as well as for trying to run away during the arrest, but their connections to President of Brazil Getúlio Vargas granted them a pardon.[2]
After all that jiu-jitsu talk, one loss made them turn to classic thuggery!