AUTHOR: C S Lewis
QUOTATION: Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
ATTRIBUTION: Recalled on his death 22 Nov 63
QUOTATION: “Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
ATTRIBUTION: Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892), British poet. The Lotus-Eaters (l. 1–4). .
QUOTATION: Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.
ATTRIBUTION: Aristotle (384–323 B.C.), Greek philosopher. Nicomachean Ethics 3.6; 1115a6-7, trans. by Ross-Urmson, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, Princeton, Princeton University Press (1985).
QUOTATION: Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious; because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation; whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.
ATTRIBUTION: David Hume (1711–1776), Scottish philosopher. “Of National Characters,” part I, essay XXI, p. 212, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller, revised edition, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, Inc. (1987).
QUOTATION: Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.
ATTRIBUTION: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Journals, entry in 1859 (1909-1914).
QUOTATION: Romeo. Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much.
Mercutio. No, ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Romeo and Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet, act 3, sc. 1, l. 95-8.
Even as he is dying, stabbed by Tybalt, Mercutio jests with a pun on the word “grave.”
QUOTATION: Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies,
But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
ATTRIBUTION: William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), Irish poet, playwright. “Red Hanrahan’s Song about Ireland.”
QUOTATION: I have never doubted your courage and devotion to the cause. But you have just lost a Division, and prima facie the fault is upon you; and while that remains unchanged, for me to put you in command again, is to justly subject me to the charge of having put you there on purpose to have you lose another.
ATTRIBUTION: Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), U.S. president. Letter to Robert H. Milroy, June 29, 1863. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 6, p. 308, Rutgers University Press (1953, 1990).
Alan Cohen:
It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Martin Luther King, Jr.:
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.
The Trumpet of Conscience
Maya Angelou:
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
Ralph Waldo Emerson:
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.
Susan B. Anthony:
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
Winston Churchill:
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
Helen Keller:
I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
