Courage

• A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. —-Mahatma Gandhi

• All serious daring starts from within. —-Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius -— and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. —-Albert Einstein

• Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day. —-Booker T. Washington

• As you move through life, set aside good ideas and give them to others to encourage and inspire. —-Peter J. Daniels

• Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage. —-Lao Tzu

• Courage consists of the power of self-recovery. —-Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Courage is like love, it must have hope for nourishment. —-Napoleon Bonaparte

• Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it. —-Mark Twain

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

• Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others. —-Sir Winston Churchill

• Courage is sometimes frail as hope is frail: a fragile shoot between two stones that grows brave toward the sun though warmth and brightness fail, striving and faith the only strength it knows —-Frances Rodman

• Courage is to feel the daily daggers of relentless steel and keep on living. —-Douglas Malloch

• Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the hell with sugar and spice. —-Unknown

• Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow by conflict. --William Ellery Channing

• Don't work for my happiness, my brothers -— show me yours -— show me that it possible -— show me your achievement -— and the knowledge will give me courage for mine. —-Ayn Rand

• Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Have courage to use your own understanding! --Immanuel Kant

• Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement. —-Florence Scovel Shinn

• Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to dark place where it leads. —-Erica Jong

• Fear imprisons; faith liberates; fear paralyzes; faith empowers; fear disheartens; faith encourages; fear sickens; faith heals; fear makes useless; faith makes serviceable. —-Harry Emerson Fosdick

• Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. —-William Arthur Ward

• God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. —-Reinhold Niebuhr

• Grace under pressure. —-Ernest Hemingway's definition of "guts"

• Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a [person] does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses their intelligence. —-Albert Einstein

• History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. —-B.C. Forbes

• I am old enough to know that victory is often a thing deferred, and rarely at the summit of courage. What is at the summit of courage, I think, is freedom. The freedom that comes with the knowledge that no earthly thing can break you. —-Paula Giddings

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

• It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else. —-Erma Bombeck

• "It requires more courage to suffer than to die." -- Napoléon Bonaparte

• Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. —-Robert Louis Stevenson

• Last, but by no means least, courage -— moral courage, the courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle —- the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other. —-Douglas MacArthur

• Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success. --Brian Adams

• Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. —-Anaïs Nin

• Like timidity, courage too, is contagious. --Munshi Premchand

• Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us through them. —-Brendan Francis

• Nature reacts not only to physical disease, but also to moral weakness; when the danger increases, she gives us greater courage —-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. The way in which power works is a mystery. —-Albert Schweitzer

• Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement. —-George Adams

• Often I have found that the one thing that can save is the thing which appears most to threaten ... one has to go down into what one most fears and that process ... comes a saving flicker of light and energy that, even if it does not produce the courage of a hero, at any rate enables a trembling mortal to take one step further. —-Laurens Van Der Post

• One man with courage makes a majority. —-Andrew Jackson

• Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you. —-Mary Tyler Moore

• Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on. —-La Rochefoucauld

• Personal mastery teaches us to choose. Choosing is a courageous act: picking the results and actions which you will make into your destiny. —-Peter Senge

• Self-esteem is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. —-Alex F. Osborn

• Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely. —-Adam Michnik

• Strength and courage aren't always measured in medals and victories. They are measured in the struggles they overcome. The strongest people aren't always the people who win, but the people who don't give up when they lose. —-Ashley Hodgeson

• The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of the 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 morality. —-John F. Kennedy

• The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. —-R. G. Ingersoll

• The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement. —-Charles Schwab

• There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend. —-Katherine Hathaway

• This country was not built by men who relied on somebody else to take care of them. It was built by men who relied on themselves, who dared to shape their own lives, who had enough courage to blaze new trails -— enough confidence themselves to take the necessary risks. —-J. Ollie Edmunds

• To have courage for whatever comes in life —- everything lies in that. —-Mother Teresa

• To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage. —-Confucius

• We must believe in ourselves or no one else will believe in us; we must match our aspirations with the competence, courage and determination to succeed. —-Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

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

• Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage. —-Samuel Johnson

• 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. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. —-Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go. —-Bernard Malamud

• You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do. --Eleanor Roosevelt