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The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone.

Fortes et strenuos etiam contra fortunam insistere, timidos et ignores ad desperationem formidine properare.

Original text (Latin)

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Courage

More quotes by Tacitus

It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.

Great empires are not maintained by timidity.

Our magistrates discharge their duties best at the beginning; and fall off toward the end.

Every great example of punishment has in it some injustice, but the suffering individual is compensated by the public good.

A woman after having parted with her virtue will hesitate at nothing.

All Tacitus quotes →

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Cowards die many times before their deaths;
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell Education and the Social Order (1932)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Tacitus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.