Courage: A Little Book of Brave Thoughts

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When I was a teenager, while I toured the Capitol as part of a singing group, I bought a book from the Washington Cathedral at Washington, D.C.. This book was called COURAGE: A Little Book of Brave Thoughts. I read it many times as a young lady, it infused my thoughts. Read it, absorb it and you will understand how I approach life and how I approach war. Because I couldn’t afford to move my books from Seattle, I lost this book. I called bookstores to buy it. It was out of print. But a library had it, so I typed the whole book out, so I could still read those sayings that inspired me as a young woman, and that formed my attitude for the rest of my life. . .

FROM COURAGE: A LITTLE BOOK OF BRAVE THOUGHTS

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

VICTOR MARIE HUGO

When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Remember that if the opportunities for great needs should never come, the opportunity for good deeds is renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory.

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER

The hero is no braver than the ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer,

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

A life without purpose is a languid, drifting thing; every day we ought to review our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let me make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught!

THOMAS A KEMPIS

Courage is the best gift of all; courage stands before everything. It is what preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things: a man with courage has every blessing.

PLAUTUS

It is my joy in life to find
At every turning of the road
The strong arm of a comrade kind
To help me onward with my load.
And since I have no gold to give,
And love alone must make amends,
My only prayer is, while I live,
God make me worthy of my friends!

FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN

The bad man’s courage still prepares the way for its own outwitting.

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE

The block of granite which is an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the pathway of the strong.

THOMAS CARLYLE

“Though I cannot teach courage,” said Nekayah, “I must not learn cowardice.”

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Where true fortitude dwells, loyalty, bounty, friendship, and fidelity may be found.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere;
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

EMILY BRONTE

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: It was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages running deep beneath external nature give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligences, which strengthens and controls them, and of which the laborers on the surface do not even dream!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

A man of courage never wants weapons.

THOMAS FULLER

We try to grasp too much of life at a time. We think of it as a whole, instead of taking the days one by one. Life is a mosaic, and each tiny piece must be cut and set with skill.

ANONYMOUS

The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

There is courage in the treatment of every art by a master in architecture, in sculpture, in painting or in poetry, each cheering the mind of the spectator or receiver as by true strokes of genius, which yet nowise implies the presence of physical valor in the artist. This is the courage of genius, in every kind.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end,
Courage — an independent spark from
Heaven’s bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant,
high, alone. . .

GEORGE FARQUHAR

Who, then, is the invincible man? He whom nothing outside the sphere of his moral purpose can dismay.

EPICTETUS

To be always intending to lead a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.

JOHN TILLOTSON

Pay as little attention to discouragements as possible. Plough ahead as a steamer does, rough or smooth, rain or shine. To carry your cargo and make your port is the point.

MALTBIE D. BABCOCK

O, fear not in a world like this
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

It is good to know; it is better to do; it is best to be. To be pure and strong, to be honest and earnest, to be kindly and thoughtful, and in all to be true, to be manly and womanly. He can do more for others who has done most with himself.

SAMUEL DICKEY GORDON

No, when the fight begins within himself,

A man’s worth something. God stoops o’er his head.

ROBERT BROWNING

That’s courage — to take hard knocks like a man when occasion calls.

PLAUTUS

This I resolved on — to run, when I can, to go, when I cannot run; and to creep, when I cannot go.

JOHN BUNYAN

There are degrees of courage, and each step upward makes us acquainted with a higher virtue. Let us say then frankly that the education of the will is the object of our existence.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

O the joy of a manly selfhood!
To be servile to none, to defer to none,
not to any tyrant known and unknown,
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy
and elastic,
To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye.

WALT WHITMAN

He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

We have work to do, and loads to lift;

Shun not the struggle — face it; ‘tis God’s gift.

MALTBIE BABCOCK

All the doors that lead inward to the secret place of the Most High are doors outward — out of self — out of smallness — out of wrong.

GEORGE MACDONALD

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise,
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND

Courage is imperial. It underlies true achievement. Unless we have moral nerve to live out our convictions, they are of small account.

ANONYMOUS

Man who would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne,
Of vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

True courage is to do without witnesses everything that one is capable of doing before all the world.

DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCALD

We place at the top of our esteem those people who take chivalrously the heavy blows of life, who are not brave merely, but gallant.

OWEN WISTER

Wouldst shape a noble life? Then cast
No backward glances toward the past,
And though somewhat be lost and gone,
Yet do thou act as one new born;
What each day needs, that shalt thou ask,
Each day will set its proper task.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The most disastrous times have produced the greatest minds. The purest metal comes of the most ardent furnace, the most brilliant lightning comes of the darkest clouds.

FRANCOIS RENE DE CHATEAUBRIAND

Courage is the scorner of things which inspire fear.

SENECA

The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new and better goals.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

No man can be brave who considers pain the greatest evil of life; or temperate, who regards pleasure as the highest good.

CICERO

To fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom
The calvary of woe.

EMILY DICKINSON

To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all virtue.

CHARLES KINGSLEY

Hope and have faith, and take new courage! Go forward, knowing that all will be well with you, that every situation will become harmonious and will be adjusted for your highest good. This is possible if you have much faith.

DANA GATLIN

Courage, the footstool of the Virtues, upon which they stand.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Oh, while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,
To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints, or scornful criticisms,
To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground,
Proving my interior soul impregnable,
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

WALT WHITMAN

Live as though life were earnest, and life will be so.

OWEN MEREDITH

Many owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. — It springs from a consciousness of virtue, and renders a man, in the pursuit or defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition, or contempt.

SAMUEL GRISWOLD GOODRICH

‘Tis more brave
To live, than to die.

OWEN MEREDITH

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let is first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

EPICTETUS

God will come in at the deepest part of the stream to lend you a hand.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD

Nothing but courage can guide life.

LUC DE CLAPIERS VAUVENNARGUES

Where in the heart there is combined love and courage, even the weak become mighty.

HAROLD WHALEY

Fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man’s self, and an undisturbed doing his duty whatever evils beset, or dangers lie in the way.

JOHN LOCKE

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

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD

Sing unto the Lord a new song: sing praises lustily unto him with a good courage.

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

True courage scorns
To vent her prowess in a storm of words;
And, to the valiant, actions speak alone.

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT

The bravery founded on hope of recompense, fear of punishment, experience of success, on rage, or on ignorance of danger, is but common bravery, and does not deserve the name. True bravery proposes a just end; measures the dangers, and meets the result with calmness and unyielding decision.

FRANCOIS DE LA NOUE

The brave man is not he who feels no fear, for that were stupid and irrational; but he whose noble soul subdues its fear, and bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.

JOANNA BAILLIE

A brave captain is as a root, out of which, as branches, the courage of his soldiers doth spring.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withsoever thou goest.

JOSHUA 1:9

The greater the difficulty, the more glory is surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

EPICURUS

As in nature, as in art, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their lustre. The more the diamond is cut the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing, there God has no end in view but to perfect his people.

THOMAS GUTHRIE

Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

SENECA

It is dangerous to abandon oneself to the luxury of grief; it deprives one of courage, and even of the wish for recovery.

HENRY FREDERIC AMIEL

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than before.

POLYBIUS

In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

LONGINUS

Counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The estimate and valor of a man consists in the heart and in the will; there his true honor lies. Valor is stability, not of arms and legs, but of courage and the soul; it does not lie in the valor of our horse, nor of our arms, but in ourselves. He that falls obstinate in his courage, if his legs fail him, fights upon his knees.

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul.

CHARLES BUXTON

The brave find a home in every land.

OVID

Courage brother! do not stumble!
Though thy path is dark as night;
There’s a star to guide the humble:
Trust in God, and do the Right!

NORMAN MACLEOD

A man should stop his ears against paralyzing terror, and run the race that is sent before him with a single mind.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

A man must have the gift to discern at all turns where the true heart of the matter lies and to plant himself courageously on that, as a strong true man that other true men may rally round him there. He will not continue leader of men otherwise.

WILLIAM CARLYLE

Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,
Balking the end half-won, for an instant’s dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise, certain of sword and pen,
Being neither children, nor gods, but men in a world of men.

RUDYARD KIPLING

Fortune and love favor the brave.

OVID

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of men.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship.

WILLIAM THACKERAY

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
“Be bold!” and everywhere — “Be bold”;
“Be not too bold!” Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Self-trust is the essence of heroism

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

When moral courage feels that it is in the right, there is no personal daring of which it is incapable.

LEIGH HUNT

True courage is the result of reasoning. — Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins; and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and of religion, will carry us farther than all the force of mechanism.

JEREMY COLLIER

If thou desire to be truly valiant, fear to do any injury; he that fears to do evil is always afraid to suffer evil; he that never fears is desperate; he that fears always is a coward; he is the true valiant man that dares nothing but what he may, and fears nothing but what he ought.

FRANCIS QUARLES

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.

JEAN PAUL RICHTER

The man who is just and resolute will not be moved from his settled purpose, either by the misdirected rage of his fellow citizens, or by the threats of an imperious tyrant.

HORACE

The heights of great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the height.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Courage makes a man more than himself;
for he is then himself plus his valor.

WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER

Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.

AARON HILL

Courage! Suffering, when it climbs highest, lasts not long.

AESCHYLUS

Be not merely good; be good for something.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

PSALM 27

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

WILLIAM COWPER

I know of no more encouraging fact that the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

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

Unbounded courage and compassion joined,
Tempering each other in the victor’s mind,
Alternately proclaim him good and great,
And make the hero and the man complete.

JOSEPH ADDISON

This is another day! Are its eyes blurred
With maudlin grief for any wasted past?
A thousand thousand failures shall not daunt!
Let dust clasp dust, death, death; I am alive!

DON MARQUIS

Art little? Do thy little well,
And for thy comfort know
Great men can do their greatest work
No better than just so.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

WILLIAM JAMES

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

JEAN PAUL RICHTER

Tender handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.

AARON HILL

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.

EDWARD GEORGE BULWER-LYTTON

The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.

THOMAS CARLYLE

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.

JOSEPH ADDISON

A man must not complain of his “element,” or of his “time,” or the like; it is thriftless work doing so. His time is bad; well then, he is there to make it better.

THOMAS CARLYLE

God gives each man one life, like a lamp,
then gives
That lamp due measure of oil: lamp lighted —
hold high, wave wide
Its comfort for others to share.

ROBERT BROWNING

The greatest object in the universe, says a certain philosopher, is a good man struggling with adversity; yet there is a still greater, which is the good man that comes to relieve it.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortune hardest to bear are those which never come.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

True courage is not built upon mental cleverness, or earthly power, but it stands upon the solid rock of truth and spiritual power.

LOWELL FILLMORE

So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not consist in evasion or flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fear groundless.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Not in the clamor of the crowded street
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng
But in ourselves are triumph and defeat.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Brave your storm with firm endeavor, let
your vain repinings go!
Hopeful hearts will find forever
roses underneath the snow!

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

Be steadfast as a tower that doth not bend its stately summit to the tempest’s shock.

DANTE

A high character might be produced, I suppose, by continued prosperity, but it has very seldom been the case. Adversity, however it may appear to be our foe, is our true friend; and, after a little acquaintance with it, we receive it as a precious thing — the prophecy of a coming joy. It should be no ambition of ours to traverse a path without a thorn or stone.

CHARLES H. SPURGEON

The wisest man could ask no more of fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the many, honored by the few;
Nothing to court in Church, or World,
or State,
But inwardly in secret to be great.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

When fate is adverse, a wise man can always strive for happiness and sail against the wind to attain it.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

I prefer to strive in bravery with the bravest, rather than in wealth with the richest, or in greed with the greediest.

MARCUS CARO

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always some one to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win them.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Being a man, ne’er ask the god for a life set free from grief, but ask for courage that endureth long.

MENANDER

Be strong, and quit yourselves like man.

I SAMUEL 4:9

Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart.

PSALM 27:14

I am bigger than anything that can happen to me. All these things, sorrow, misfortune and suffering, are outside my door. I am in the house and I have the key.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love and of a sound mind.

I TIM. 1:7

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

PLUTARCH

Courage leads starward, fear toward death.

SENECA

Out of the dark a shadow,
Then, a spark;
Out of the cloud a silence,
Then, a lark;Out of the heart a rapture,
Then, a pain;
Out of the dead cold ashes,
Life again.

JOHN B. TABB

We all stand in the front rank of the battle every moment of our lives; where there is a brave man in the thickest of the flight, there is the point of honor.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Fear to do base and unworthy things is valor; if they be done to us, to suffer them is also valor.

BEN JONSON

Happiness is freedom, and freedom is courage.

PERICLES

Valor consists in the power of self-recovery.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

One day, with life and heart,
Is more than time enough to find a world.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Through all the air the eagle may roam
The whole earth is father-land to the brave.

OVID

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

GEORGE ELIOT

The truest courage is always mixed with circumspection; this being the quality which distinguishes the courage of the wise from the hardiness of the rash and foolish.

WILLIAM JONES OF NAYLAND

O Friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong,
And let no warrior in the heat of fight
Do what may bring him shame in others’ eyes;
For more of those who shrink from shame
are safe
Than fall in battle, while with those who flee
Is neither glory nor reprieve from death.

HOMER

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.

EPICTETUS

The brave are parsimonious of threats.

LOUIS KOSSUTH

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

As courage and intelligence are the two qualifications best worth a good man’s cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligence to recognize our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed before the fact.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

God helps the brave.

JOHANN VON SHILLER

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

SOCRATES

He is not worthy of the honeycomb
That shuns the hive because the bees have
stings.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life, or in physical contests.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

There are two freedoms: the false where one is free to do what he likes and the true where he is free to do what he ought.

CHARLES KINGSLEY

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o’clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision.

NAPOLEON I

From the lowliest depth there is a path to the loftiest height.

WILLIAM CARLYLE

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

ROBERT BROWNING

Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet.

MARGARET FULLER

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.

CATHERINE OF RUSSIA (I am descended from this woman’s royal family–the same family that produced Frederick the Great of Prussia)

There is a strength of quiet endurance as significant of courage as the most daring feats of process.

HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN

There’s a brave fellow! There’s a man of pluck!
A man who’s not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town’s against him.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I am devilishly afraid, that’s certain; but . . .
I’ll sing, that I may seem valiant.

JOHN DRYDEN

Hope awakens courage.
He who can implant courage in the human soul
Is the best physician.

KARL LUDWIG VON KNEBEL

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

WALTER BAGEHOT

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps. He only is rightly immortal, to whom all things are immortal. I have read somewhere, that none is accomplished, so long as any are incomplete; that the happiness of one cannot consist with the misery of any other.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

We always have time enough, if we use it aright.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The burden which is well borne becomes light.

OVID

I argue not
Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.

JOHN MILTON

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

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

THOMAS CARLYLE

No man is born into the world, whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work
And tools to work withal, for those who will:
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

For courage mounteth with occasion.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When God shuts a door, he opens a window.

JOHN RUSKIN

Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

SAMUEL DANIEL

To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage.

CONFUCIUS

The direct foe of courage is the fear itself, not the object of it, and the man who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more.

GEORGE MACDONALD

The sweetest music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness, truth or courage.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really are.

JULIUS CHARLES AND AUGUST W. HARE

A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

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

SMITH

Not failure, but low aim is a crime.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

He fearless stands; he knows whom he doth trust:
Strange strength resideth in the soul that’s just.

MICHAEL DRAYTON

One man with courage makes a majority.

ANDREW JACKSON

Nothing can work me damage, except myself. The harm that I sustain I carry about me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.
I have no fear! What is in store for me
Shall find me self-reliant, undismayed.
God grant my only cowardice may be
Afraid — to be afraid!

EVERARD JACK APPLETON

To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power.

GEORGE MACDONALD

No man can answer for his courage who has never been in danger.

DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

One self-approving hour whole years outweigh.

ALEXANDER POPE

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.

JOHN A. GARFIELD

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Confidence or courage is conscious ability — the sense of power.

WILLIAM HAZLITT

In the most private life, difficult duty is never far off. Therefore we must think with courage.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Recall your courage, and lay aside sad fear.

VERGIL

Courage knows no yielding to calamity.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

Earth shakes beneath them, and heaven
roars above;
But nothing scares them from the course
they love.

WILLIAM COWPER

A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Who does the best his circumstances allows,

Does well, acts nobly — angels could do no more.

EDWARD YOUNG

Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.

MATTHEW 14:27

It is in great dangers that we see great courage.

JEAN REGNARD

A man of courage is also full of faith.

CICERO

I count life just a stuff
To try the soul’s strength on.

ROBERT BROWNING

Endurance is the crowning quality, and patience all the passion of great hearts.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Presence of mind and courage in distress,
Are more than armies to procure success.

JOHN DRYDEN

Our only greatness is that we aspire.

JEAN INGELOW

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his right and left hand. He uses both.

CATHERINE OF SIENA

Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.

OVID

Courage from hearts, and not from numbers grows.

JOHN DRYDEN

Courage consists in equality to the problem before us.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The braver the man so much the more fortunate will he be.

LATIN PROVERB

A brave man is clear in his discourse, and keeps close to truth.

ARISTOTLE

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

It does not matter a feather whether a man be supported by patron or client, if he himself wants courage.

PLAUTUS

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

WILLIAM M. THACKERAY

The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Life is too short to be little.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

Do your duty and leave the rest to providence.

STONEWALL JACKSON

Fields are won by those who believe in winning.

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of man have the least of a brutal, bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free.

ANTHONY SHAFTSBURY

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage to them — that it was a vain endeavor?

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

JAMES SHIRLEY

Whoever perseveres will be crowned.

JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON HERDER

Truth wants no champion who is not as ready to be struck as to strike for her.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND

The best hearts are ever the bravest.

LAURENCE STERNE

Those who believe that the praises which arise from valor are superior to those which proceed from any other virtue have not considered.

JOHN DRYDEN

Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.

PYTHAGORAS

Be not afraid of every stranger;
Start not aside for every danger;
Things that seem are not the same;
Blow not a blast at every flame.

GEORGE PEELE

Fear always springs from ignorance.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Every noble work is at first impossible.

THOMAS CARLYLE

He’s truly valiant that can suffer wisely
The worst that man can breathe and make
his wrongs
His outsides, to wear them like his raiment,
carelessly;
And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart
To bring it into danger.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.

JOHN DRYDEN

Conscience is the root of all true courage;
if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.

JAMES F. CLARKE

I count life just a stuff
To try the soul’s strength on.

ROBERT BROWNING

The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.

CORRA HARRIS

Fearless minds climb soonest unto crown.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Difficulties are the things that show what men are.

EPICTETUS

Courage is that virtue which champions the cause of right.

CICERO

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

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

The love of glory, the fear of shame, the design of making a fortune, the desire of rendering life easy and agreeable, and the humor of pulling down other people are often the causes of that valor so celebrated among men.

DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

The brave man seeks not a popular applause,
Nor, overpower’d with arms, deserts his
cause;
Unsham’d, though foil’d, he does the best
he can,
Force is of brutes, but honor is of men.

JOHN DRYDEN

The busy have no time for tears.

GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON

Without courage
There cannot be truth:
And without truth
There can be no other virtue.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.

JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE

Why, courage then! what cannot be avoided
‘Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All human power is a compound of time and patience.

HONORE DE BALZAC

What a new face courage puts on everything!

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Courage exerts itself in difficulties.

OVID

It is too difficult to think nobly when one only thinks to get a living.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Dare to do your duty always; this is the height of valor.

CHARLES SIMMONS

The better part of valor is discretion.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

He most prevails who nobly dares.

WILLIAM BROOME

Physical courage which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp; the latter for the council; but to constitute a great man both are necessary.

CALEB C. COLTON

There is always safety in valor.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

SENECA

Fear can keep a man out of danger, but courage can support him in it.

THOMAS FULLER

Character is singularly contagious.

SAMUEL A. ELIOT

The gods always favor the strong.

TACITUS

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.

CHRISTINE NESTELL BOVEE

The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used, will be a gift also to his race.

JOHN RUSKIN

Fortune can take away riches, but not courage.

SENECA

The low man seeks a little to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Does ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred’s soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses a unit,
That has the world here — should he need
the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and
unperplexed,
Seeking, shall find Him.

ROBERT BROWNING

If I shoot at the sun, I may hit a star.

PHINEAS TAYLOR BARNUM

Blessed is the man who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

THOMAS CARLYLE

To suffer woes which hopes thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than the death or
night;
To defy power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, to bear, to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck, the things to
contemplate;
Neither to change, to falter, or repent;
This, like the glory Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone, Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Have the courage not to adopt another’s courage.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

He who respects himself is safe from others;
He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Valor lies half-way between rashness and cowardice.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL

One who never turned his back but marched
breast forward
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted,
wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

ROBERT BROWNING

Courage respects courage.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness is not on your brow.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of one small candle.

ANONYMOUS

The leading rule for a man of every calling is diligence; never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

So let him wait God’s instant, men call years;
Meantime, hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out thy duty! Through such souls alone,
God stooping, shows sufficient of His light
For us i’ the dark to rise by. And I rise.

ROBERT BROWNING

I sit beside my lonely fire
And pray for wisdom yet
For calmness to remember
Or courage to forget.

CHARLES HAMILTON AIDE

Muster your wits: stand in your own defense;
Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

There are seasons when to be still demands immensely higher strength than to act.

CHANNING

The ground that a good man treads is hallowed.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Little things affect little minds.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

Self-reverence, self-knowledge,
self-control
These three things lead life to sovereign
power.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Chiefly, the mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.

FRANCIS BACON

It is better to wear out than rust out.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND

And though hard be the task, “Keep a stiff upper lip.”

PHOEBE CARY

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY