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:
It is courage based on confidence, not daring, and it is confidence based on experience.
All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them.
To have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that.
He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.
Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.
There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.
To gulp down anger is the most courageous act one can perform. One who does it becomes humble.
The lonely billows of the Atlantic, where every breeze speaks of courage and liberty.