Quotes about courage

Courage is the capacity to conduct oneself with restraint in times of prosperity and with courage and tenacity when things do not go well.

— James V. Forrestal

The more wit the less courage.

— Thomas Fuller

The brave love mercy, and delight to save.

— John Gay

A man not perfect, but of heart so high, of such heroic rage, That even his hopes became a part of earth's eternal heritage.

— Richard Watson Gilder

No more turning away from the weak and the weary. No more turning away from the coldness inside. Just a world that we all must share. It's not enough just to stand and stare. Is it only a dream that there'll be no more turning away.

— David Gilmore

For the man sound of body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

— George Robert Gissing

Have the courage of your desire.

— George Robert Gissing

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Wealth lost is something lost, honor lost is something lost: Courage lost all is lost.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

— Vincent Van Gogh

He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.

— James Graham

Most men have more courage than even they themselves think they have.

— Lord Greville

Life only demands from you the strength that you possess. Only one feat is possible; not to run away.

— Dag Hammarskjold

The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.

— Corra May Harris

Give us the fortitude to endure the things which cannot be changed, and the courage to change the things which should be changed, ;and the wisdom to know one from the other.

— Oliver J. Hart

All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

Gallantry to women -- the sure road to their favor -- is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.

— William Hazlitt

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

— William Hazlitt

Courage is grace under pressure.

— Ernest Hemingway

Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.

— Aaron Hill

And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared.

— Homer

Live as brave men and face adversity with stout hearts.

— Horace

The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.

— Horace

Quit thinking that you must halt before the barrier of inner negativity. You need not. You can crash through whatever we see a negative state, that is where we can destroy it.

— Vernon Howard

You cannot fly like an eagle with wings of a wren.

— William Henry Hudson

Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. When you have laboriously accomplished your daily tasks, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

— Victor Hugo

There are obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees. No renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty and battlefields which have their heroes.

— Victor Hugo

Courage is acting in spite of fear.

— Howard W. Hunter

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

One man with courage makes a majority.

— Andrew Jackson

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.

— Andrew Jackson

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it...

— William James

The real acid test of courage is to be just your honest self when everybody is trying to be like somebody else.

— Andrew Jensen

Like a boxer in a title fight, you have to walk in that ring alone.

— Billy Joel

I decided once and for all that I was going to make it or die.

— John Johnson

I'd rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

— Lyndon B. Johnson

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

— Samuel Johnson

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

— Samuel Johnson

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

— Samuel Johnson

If men knew all that women think, they would be twenty times more daring.

— Alphonse Karr

For without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men have lived.

— John F. Kennedy

The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of the final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.

— John F. Kennedy

Moral courage is a more rare commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.

— Robert F. Kennedy

It's better to be a lion for a day, than a sheep all your life.

— Sister Elizabeth Kenny

It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.

— Søren Kierkegaard

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

— King Jr. Martin Luther

Be bold-and mighty forces will come to your aid.

— Basil King

You take a number of small steps which you believe are right, thinking maybe tomorrow somebody will treat this as a dangerous provocation. And then you wait. If there is no reaction, you take another step: courage is only an accumulation of small steps.

— George Konrad

All of the significant battles are waged within the self.

— Sheldon Kopp

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold you head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.

— Ann Landers

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.

— Lao-Tzu

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

— Lao-Tzu

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

— Harper Lee

Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.

— C. S. Lewis

Pugnacity is a form of courage, but a very bad form.

— Sinclair Lewis

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

— Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Is he alone who has courage on his right hand and faith on his left hand?

— Charles A. Lindbergh

Write on your doors the saying wise and old. Be bold! and everywhere -- Be bold; Be not too bold! Yet better the excess Than the defect; better the more than less sustaineth him and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.

— Clare Boothe Luce

The brave don't live forever, but the cautious don't live at all. Here's to the brave!

— Timothy Luce

Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen!

— Martin Luther

Last, but by no means least, courage-moral courage, the courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world ;is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle-the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your ;conscience on the other.

— Douglas Macarthur

Courage brother, do not stumble, though thy path be dark as night: There is a star to guide the humble, Trust in God, and do the right. Let the road be dark and dreary and its end far out of sight. Face it bravely, strong or weary. Trust in God, and do the right.

— Norman Macleod

Stand up to crises. Don't let them throw you! Fight to stay calm... even surmount the crisis completely and turn it into an opportunity. Refuse to renounce your self-image. No matter what happens, you must keep your good opinion of yourself. No matter what happens, you must hold your past successes in your imagination, ready for showing in the motion picture screen of your mind. No matter what happens, no matter what you lose, no matter what failures you must endure, you must keep faith in yourself. Then you can stand up to crises, with calm and courage, refusing to buckle; then you will not fall through the floor. You will be able to support yourself.

— Maxwell Maltz

To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.

— Og Mandino

Be larger than your task.

— Orison Swett Marden

This is the test of your manhood: How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of yourself?

— Orison Swett Marden

The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.

— Rollo May

Never ask the Gods for life set free from grief, but ask for courage that endureth long.

— Menander of Athens

Though the practice of chivalry fell even more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race, as a remarkable instance of a concerted and organized attempt by a most disorganized and distracted society, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as to have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never entirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and for the most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times.

— John Stuart Mill

Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval.

— Thomas S. Monson

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare the truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.

— Lewis Morris

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

— Star Trek TV series

In fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.

— Miyamoto Musashi

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.

— Keshavan Nair

It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

— Anais Nin

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

— Anais Nin

Part of courage is simple consistency.

— Peggy Noonan

As for courage and will -- we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.

— Andre Norton

The burden which is well borne becomes light.

— Ovid

Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.

— Ovid

Fortune and love favor the brave.

— Ovid

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

— George S. Patton

True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher.

— John Petit-Senn

Good courage in a bad affair is half of the evil overcome.

— Plaut

Courage in danger is half the battle.

— Titus Maccius Plautus

Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.

— Plutarch

Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.

— Plutarch

No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut.

— Channing Pollock

Some have been thought brave because they didn't have the courage to run away.

— Proverb

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

— Ambrose Redmoon

It is amidst great perils we see brave hearts.

— Jean Francois Regnard

It is in great dangers that we see great courage.

— Jean Francois Regnard