Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Courage Quotes
The quotes worth a second look here are the quiet ones. In Dryden’s Amphitryon (1690) a character says he is “whistling to keep myself from being afraid”, which is still a fair description of how most courage works. Samuel Johnson, according to Boswell (1791), said courage is so necessary to virtue that it is respected even when it goes along with vice. Nassim Taleb, in The Bed of Procrustes (2010), has it the other way round from the usual advice: mental clarity is the child of courage, not the reverse. The psychologist Rollo May is the most-quoted modern writer here.
Two of the page’s better-known quotes are flagged as misattributed: the Churchill line about the courage to continue, which has no traceable source (see Success), and a passage on the courage of our questions that is credited to Carl Sagan.
Most quoted on courage:
'Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul:
I think the Romans call it Stoicism.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
Mental clarity is the child of courage, not the other way around.
Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.
Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.
I wonder if this is what bravery is: adrenaline plus love plus absolute stupidity.