Courage - Quotes

A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible. - Graham Greene

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. - George Eliot

Courage ... oh yes! If only one had that ... then life might be liveable, in spite of everything. - Henrik Ibsen

Courage and conviction are powerful weapons against an enemy who depends only on fists or guns. Animals know when you are afraid; a coward knows when you are not. - David Seabury

Courage and energy increase when you desire to work for the well-being of others; they diminish when the benefits are solely meant for yourself. - Unknown

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. - John Quincy Adams

Courage and timidity are the accompaniments of opposite tendencies of thought. The brave think only of the blows they will strike; the timid of those they may receive. - Christian Nestell Bovee

Courage calls to courage everywhere, and its voice cannot be denied. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened. - Billy Graham

Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway. - Mignon McLaughlin

Courage conquers all things; it even gives strength to the body. - Ovid

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it. - Jean Paul Richter

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow." - Mary Anne Radmacher

Courage in danger is half the battle. - Titus Maccius Plautus

Courage is a love affair with the unknown. - Osho

Courage is a terribly important value. It means you don't run away when things are tough. It means you don't turn away from a friend when he or she is in trouble. It means standing up against the majority opinion … There's a lot of people who won't wear it on their sleeve, or display it through some heroic act. But courage is having the strength to do what's honourable and decent. - George H.W. Bush

Courage is caution overcome. - Lyman Abbott

Courage is finding the inner strength and bravery required when confronting danger, difficulty, or opposition. Courage is the energy current behind all great actions and the spark that ignites the initial baby steps of growth. It resides deep within each of us, ready to be accessed in those moments when you need to forge ahead or break through seemingly insurmountable barriers. It is the intangible force that propels you forward on your journey. - Cherie Carter-Scott

Courage is grace under pressure. - Ernest Hemingway

Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Courage is needed to step out of your comfort zone, in order to grow into your new comfort zone. -Ross Cooper

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. - Mark Twain

Courage is a special kind of knowledge; the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.  - David Ben-Gurion 

Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other everything to gain. - Dianne de Poitiers 

Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway. - John Wayne

Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared. - Eddie Rickenbacker

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. - George Patton

Courage is like love – it must have hope to nourish it. - Napoleon Bonaparte

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength. - Theodore Roosevelt

Courage is not limited to the battlefield or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are much deeper and much quieter. They are the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody’s looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you are misunderstood. - Unknown

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. - C. S. Lewis

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. - Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. - Alice Mackenzie Swaim

Courage is of no value unless accompanied by justice; yet if all men became just, there would be no need for courage. - Agesilaus Ii 

Courage is rarely reckless or foolish. Courage usually involves a highly realistic estimate of the odds that must be faced. - Margaret Truman

Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other. - Samuel Johnson

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. - Mark Twain

Courage is saying, "Maybe what I'm doing isn't working; maybe I should try something else." - Anna Lappe

Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway. - Dr. Robert Anthony

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined. - Leo Rosten

Courage is the finest of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others. - Winston Churchill

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.- Aristotle

Courage is the greatest virtue, because without it there can be no others. - Samuel Johnson

Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually it implies some risk - especially in new undertakings. Courage to initiate something and to keep it going, pioneering and adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity. - Walt Disney

Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality. - Unknown

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. - Raymond Lindquist

Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes. - J. M. Barrie

Courage is the virtue of the free. - Daniel Quinn

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Unknown

Courage is worthy of respect when displayed in the maintenance of legitimate claims and in the repelling of aggressions, bodily or other. Courage is worthy of yet higher respect when danger is faced in defence of claims common to self and others, as in resistance to invasion. Courage is worthy of the highest respect when risk to life or limb is dared in defence of others. - Herbert Spencer

Courage without conscience is a wild beast. - Robert Ingersoll

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good and meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding, and that there is always tomorrow. - Dorothy Thompson

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else. - Maya Angelou

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone became brave from excess of terror. - Gustave Flaubert

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician. - Karl Ludwig von Knebel

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life. - Muhammad Ali

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. - Harper Lee

If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed. - David Viscott

If we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else. - Reinhold Niebuhr

If you could get up the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed. - David Viscott

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. - Mark Twain

It is in great dangers that we see great courage. - Jean Francois Regnard

It requires more courage to suffer than to die. - Napoleon Bonaparte

It sometimes requires courage to fly from danger. - Maria Edgeworth 

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends. - J. K. Rowling

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded. - Anne Lindbergh

It takes courage to be creative. Just as soon as you have a new idea, you are in a minority of one. - E. Paul Torrance

Keep courage. Whatever you do, do not feel sorry for yourself. You will win in a great age of opportunity. - Richard L. Evans

Many people wrongly exclude fear from the definition of courage, believing that courage is the absence of fear. Every time such people feel afraid, they assume that they aren't courageous. The reality, though, is that courage is fearful. When we are acting courageously, we are, most typically, very afraid. But we don't allow the fear we're carrying to stop us. Instead, we press on. This is the signature feature of courage: to carry on despite being fearful. Fear, thus, is an essential element in the definition of courage. You can't be courageous unless you are afraid. - Bill Treasurer

More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin. - Unknown

Most men have more courage than even they themselves think they have. - Lord Brook Fulke Greville

Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. - Conte Vittorio Alfieri

Once you have explored a fear, it becomes less terrifying. Part of courage comes from extending our knowledge. - Brian Herbert & Keven J. Anderson

People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fibre called courage. - Mignon McLaughlin

Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink you thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one’s cliches. - Tom Robbins

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. - Unknown

Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains; some in desires, and some in fears; and some are cowards under the same conditions. - Plato

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Sometimes one man with courage is a majority. - Andrew Jackson

'Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave. - John Armstrong

'Tis said that courage is common, but the immense esteem in which it is held proves it to be rare. Animal resistance, the instinct of the male animal when cornered, is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage with eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the cannon's mouth, cheerfulness in lonely adherence to the right, is the endowment of elevated characters. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

That man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The courage with which we have met past dangers is often our best security in the present. - Madame Swetchine

The great virtue in life is real courage that knows how to face facts and live beyond them. - D. H. Lawrence

The greatest act of courage is to be and own all that you are. Without apology. Without excuses and without any masks to cover the truth of who you really are. - Debbie Ford

The greatest courage is the courage to change. - Kwame

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. - Robert Green Ingersoll

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is. - John Lancaster Spalding 

The only kind of courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one minute to the next. - Mignon McLaughlin

The scars you acquire by exercising courage will never make you feel inferior. - D.A. Battista

The shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance. - Dan Simmons 

The test of tolerance comes when we are in a majority; the test of courage comes when we are in a minority. - Ralph W. Sockman 

There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. - J. K. Rowling

There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid. - L. Frank Baum

There’s plenty of intelligence in the world, but the courage to do things differently is in short supply. - Marilyn vos Savant

True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher. - John Petit-Senn

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason. - Alfred Whitehead

True courage is the willingness to fully experience whatever you are feeling at the moment. - Brandon Bays

True courage is to stand against evil, even when we stand alone. - Richard Edgely

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage. - Jean Anouilh

We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. - Maxwell Maltz

We need to find the courage to say NO to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover ourselves and live our lives with authenticity. - Barbara De Angelis 

What a new face courage puts on everything! - Ralph Waldo Emerson

What seem impossible is often possible, with courage. - Unknown

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? - Vincent Van Gogh

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you have no choice, mobilize the spirit of courage. - Unknown

When you jump across a canyon, cautious small steps and vacillation won't work. Sometimes you just have to go for it. - Rick Warren

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity. - Keshavan Nair

Without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men ... have lived. The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality ... In whatever arena of life, one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. but they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul. - John F. Kennedy

Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. Courage is the ladder on which all other virtues mount. - Maya Angelou

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit. - Baltasar Gracian 

You become courageous by doing courageous acts. Courage is a habit. - Unknown

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity. - Epicurus

You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. - Nancy D. Solomon

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour. - Aristotle