quotations about courage
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 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
The more keenly we are awake to the perils of life, the higher and grander is the possibility of being truly brave.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Courage,", Counsels by the Way
Courage in danger is half the battle.
PLAUTUS
Pseudolus
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
KARLE WILSON BAKER
Dreamers on Horseback
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
'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
Everyone became brave from excess of terror.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Salammbo
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
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"
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
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
Courage is being scared to death -- and saddling up anyway.
JOHN WAYNE
Reader's Digest, 1986
'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
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"
A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Heart of the Matter
Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
You Learn by Living
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
This is the art of courage: to see things as they are and still believe that the victory lies not with those who avoid the bad, but those who taste, in living awareness, every drop of the good.
VICTORIA LINCOLN
Vogue, Oct. 1, 1952