COURAGE

Related Subjects: Boldness, Defiance, Endurance, Enterprise, Hero, Martyrdom, Optimism, Resolution, Self-Confidence, Self-Reliance, Spirit, Stoicism, Valor

1. Courage that grows from constitution, often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty, acts in a uniform manner.—ADDISON

2. It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.—AESOP, The Wolf and the Kid
   

3. Witness to the world that I die like a man.—MAJOR JOHN ANDRE
   

4. It is an error to suppose that courage means courage in everything.—Most people are brave only in the dangers to which they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice.—BULWER-LYTTON
   

5. The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.—CARLYLE
   

6. The courage of New England was the "courage of Conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.—RUFUS CHOATE
   

7. To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage.—CONFUCIUS, Analects
   

8. Come on, you sons of bitches!
   Do you want to live forever?—GUNNERY SERGEANT DANIEL DALY, U. S. Marine Corps, at Belleau Wood, June 4, 1918
   

9. None but the brave deserve the fair.—DRYDEN, Alexander's Feast
   

10. Courage from hearts and not from numbers grows.—DRYDEN
    

11. Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir, and there are many victories worse than a defeat.—GEORGE ELIOT, Janet's Repentance
    

12. My center is giving way, my right is pushed back—excellent! I'll attack.—MARSHAL FOCH
    

13. Courage is, on all hands, considered as an essential of high character.—FROUDE
    

14. Brave men were living before Agamemnon.—HORACE, Odes
    

15. Live undaunted; and oppose gallant breasts against the strokes of adversity.—HORACE, Satires
    

16. No man can answer for his courage who has never been in danger.—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Maxims
    

17. Better like Hector in the field to die,
    Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.—LONGFELLOW, Morituri Salutamus
    

18. By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.—HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick
    

19. The mariner of old said thus to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt, thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."—MONTAIGNE, Essays
    

20. He who, though he falleth, is stubborn in his courage, and, being in danger of imminent death, is no whit daunted in his assurance; but, in yielding up the ghost, beholds his enemy with a scornful and fierce look—he is vanquished, not by us, but by fortune; he is slain, but not conquered. The most valiant are often the most unfortunate. So are there triumphant losses more to be envied than victories.—MONTAIGNE, Essays

21. Don't give up the ship! You will beat them off!—CAPTAIN JAMES MUGFORD
    

22. Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause.—PLUTARCH

23. Courage ought to have eyes as well as arms.—Proverb

24. A courageous foe is better than a cowardly friend.—Proverb
    

25. A stout heart crushes ill luck.—Proverb
    

26. Courage consists, not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing and conquering it.—J. P. RICHTER
    

27. Women and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but are the first to rescue when others are endangered.—J. P. RICHTER
    

28. No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life, in a great cause.—THEODORE ROOSEVELT

29. The blood more stirs
    To rouse a lion than to start a hare!—SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV
    

30. For courage mounteth with occasion.—SHAKESPEARE, King John
    

31. I dare do all that may become a man;
    Who dares do more is none.—SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
    

32. Courage ought to be guided by skill, and skill armed by courage. Hardiness should not darken wit, nor wit cool hardiness. Be valiant as men despising death, but confident as un­wonted to be overcome.—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

33. A great deal of talent is lost in this world for the want of a little courage.—SYDNEY SMITH
    

34. Return with your shield or on it.—Spartan mother's admonition to her departing warrior son
    

35. I refer those actions which work out the good of the agent to courage, and those which work out the good of others to nobility. Therefore temperance, sobriety, and presence of mind in danger, etc., are species of courage; but modesty, clemency, etc., are species of nobility.—SPINOZA, Ethics
    

36. When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, 'til it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.—HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

37. Bravery never goes out of fashion.—THACKERAY, The Four Georges
    

38. True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.—PAUL WHITEHEAD

39. She'd fight a rattlesnake and give it the first two bites.—HARRY LEON WILSON, Ruggles of Red Gap