quotations about courage
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
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
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 leads starward, fear toward death.
SENECA
Hercules Oetaeus
Walk on with courage and bravery. Go on working to improve humankind and establish the Path of Truth.
HAIDAKHAN BABAJI
The Teachings of Babaji
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
Courage consists in equality to the problem before us.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Society and Solitude
Courage is caution overcome.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Courage is that virtue which champions the cause of right.
CICERO
De Officiis
A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Heart of the Matter
Unless you have courage, a courage that keeps you going, always going, no matter what happens, there is no certainty of success. It is really an endurance race.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, Feb. 1930
Courage is a moral quality; it is not a chance gift of nature like an aptitude for games. It is a cold choice between two alternatives, the fixed resolve not to quit; an act of renunciation which must be made not once but many times by the power of the will.
CHARLES WILSON
The Anatomy of Courage
Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.
JEAN ANOUILH
Beckett
Courage ... oh yes! If only one had that ... then life might be livable, in spite of everything.
HENRIK IBSEN
Hedda Gabbler
Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains; some in desires, and some in fears; and some are cowards under the same conditions.
PLATO
Laches
Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.
J.M. BARRIE
speech, May 3, 1922
The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
SAMUEL SMILES
Character
Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.
MARY ANNE RADMACHER
Courage Doesn't Always Roar
He who is brave is free.
SENECA
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage--an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone....
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war, are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
GEORGE FARQUHAR
Love and a Bottle