quotations about courage
The courage with which we have met past dangers is often our best security in the present.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Many people wrongly exclude fear from the definition of courage, believing that courage is the absence of fear. Every time such people feel afraid, they assume that they aren't courageous. The reality, though, is that courage is fearful. When we are acting courageously, we are, most typically, very afraid. But we don't allow the fear we're carrying to stop us. Instead, we press on. This is the signature feature of courage: to carry on despite being fearful. Fear, thus, is an essential element in the definition of courage. You can't be courageous unless you are afraid.
BILL TREASURER
Courage Goes to Work
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
KARLE WILSON BAKER
Dreamers on Horseback
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."
DEBORAH COLLINS
This Is Not the Life I Ordered
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Winston Churchill's Great Quotation Book: From Alamein to Zest for Life
I can sense it
Something important
Is about to happen
It's coming up
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hardcore and the gentle
BJÖRK
"Big Time Sensuality"
Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs
Better than all the stalemate an's and ifs.
ROBERT FROST
"For John F. Kennedy His Inauguration"
Everyone became brave from excess of terror.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Salammbo
Courage in danger is half the battle.
PLAUTUS
Pseudolus
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
MAYA ANGELOU
USA Today, Mar. 5, 1988
'Tis said that courage is common, but the immense esteem in which it is held proves it to be rare. Animal resistance, the instinct of the male animal when cornered, is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage with eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the cannon's mouth, cheerfulness in lonely adherence to the right, is the endowment of elevated characters.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Society and Solitude
The skin of the coward changes color all the time,
he can't get a grip on himself, he can't sit still,
he squats and rocks, shifting his weight from foot to foot,
his heart racing, pounding inside the fellow's ribs,
his teeth chattering -- he dreads some grisly death.
But the skin of the brave soldier never blanches.
HOMER
The Iliad
Courage is being scared to death -- and saddling up anyway.
JOHN WAYNE
Reader's Digest, 1986
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Orthodoxy
Courage is finding the inner strength and bravery required when confronting danger, difficulty, or opposition. Courage is the energy current behind all great actions and the spark that ignites the initial baby steps of growth. It resides deep within each of us, ready to be accessed in those moments when you need to forge ahead or break through seemingly insurmountable barriers. It is the intangible force that propels you forward on your journey.
CHERIE CARTER-SCOTT
If Life Is a Game
'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
True courage…has so little to do with Anger, that there lies always the strongest Suspicion against it, where this Passion is highest. The true Courage is the cool and calm. The bravest of Men have the least of a brutal bullying Insolence; and in the very time of Danger are found the most serene, pleasant, and free. Rage, we know, can make a Coward forget himself and fight. But what is done in Fury, or Anger, can never be plac'd to the account of Courage.
ANTHONY ASHLEY-COOPER
Characteristics of Men
I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.
ERIC ROTH
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Courage leads starward, fear toward death.
SENECA
Hercules Oetaeus