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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.

Random quote on Courage

Most quoted on courage:

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

John F. Kennedy Speech at Amherst College (1963)

Where guilt is, rage and courage both abound.

Ben Jonson Sejanus His Fall (1602)

More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.

James Thomson

The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description.

Douglas MacArthur Farewell address to Congress (1951)

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.

Ronald Reagan

We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper stuff of fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.

Virginia Woolf The Common Reader (1925)

Blessings on your young courage, boy; that's the way to the stars.

Virgil Aeneid (-19)

Through the Spirit's action may the young people gathered here have the courage to become saints! This is what the world needs more than anything else.

Pope Benedict XVI

Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged, still take courage over against the various forms of nature. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Jesus

Hero tales suggest the price of courage is beyond the ordinary budget. They tempt us to disown the common capacity of the human spirit to transcend normality.

Sam Keen

Decisions must be made at any given time with wisdom and caution. But also, sometimes with courage and audacity.

Martin Veillette

But the disparagement of the multitude overcame the courage of one man.

Cornelius Nepos

As I thought. That man’s got the heart of a shark, which is to say none, and the courage of a jellyfish, which is also to say none.

Raymond E. Feist Magician: Master (1982)

Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

Walter Raleigh

Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning.

Samuel Beckett

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

Sydney Smith Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)

Churchill must not forget that the Italians have nothing more to lose and they possess a courage of despair.

Alessandro Pavolini

Thou too take courage, wealth despise,
And fit thee to ascend the skies,
Nor be a poor man's courtesies
Rejected or disdained.

John Conington The Aeneid of Virgil (1866)

Circumstances make the hero, but everyday courage makes the righteous man.

Padre Pio

If you're a father of sons, think of a man you'd like your boys to emulate, then be that man--exemplify his selflessness, fidelity, courage.

Robert P. George

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