Courageous quotes

This is a paraphrase of an idea that Dewey expressed using other words in My Pedagogic Creed (1897) and Democracy and Education (1916); it is widely misattributed to Dewey as a quotation.
Cf. James William Norman, A Comparison of Tendencies in Secondary Education in England and the United States (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1922), [//books.google.com/books?id=qrmgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA140 p. 140] (emphasis added): "...there has for years been a strong and growing tendency in the United States under the leadership of Dewey, and more recently of Kilpatrick, to find an educational method correlative of democracy in society with the belief that education is life itself rather than a mere preparation for life, and that practice in democratic living is the best preparation for democracy."
Misattributed
Variant: Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself.

As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v

'La vie n’est facile pour aucun de nous. Mais quoi, il faut avoir de la persévérance, et surtout de la confiance en soi. Il faut croire que l’on est doué pour quelque chose, et que, cette chose, il faut l'atteindre coûte que coûte.'
As quoted in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, Part 2, p. 116

As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

2021

Attributed to Goethe by popular British novelist Marie Corelli in her essay &quot;The Spirit of Work&quot; as published in The Queen&#x27;s Christmas carol : an anthology of poems, stories, essays, drawings and music / by British authors, artists and composers in 1905 by The Daily Mail of London. <br class="br">Attributed to Goethe by William Hutchinson Murray, in his book The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951), this has been shown to be a misattribution at &quot;German Myth 12: The Famous &#x27;Goethe&#x27; Quotation&quot;, Answer.com http://german.about.com/library/blgermyth12.htm and &quot;Popular Quotes: Commitment&quot;, Goethe Society of North America http://www.goethesociety.org/pages/quotescom.html <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

Attributed in Going Within (1990) http://books.google.com/books?id=buVs1VVUZakC&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;pg=PA303#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false by Shirley MacLaine, p. 303 <br class="br">Attributed

The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
Variant: The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Ch. IX : Outdoors and Indoors, p. 336; the final statement "quoted by Squire Bill Widener" as well as variants of it, are often misattributed to Roosevelt himself.
Variant: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Attributed to Roosevelt in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason, Nugget # 8 : The Only Place to Start is Where You Are. <!-- The Military Quotation Book, Revised and Expanded: More than 1,200 of the Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory, and Defeat (2002) by James Charlton -->
Variant: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Context: There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."

Variant: Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.

Frequently misattributed to Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain.
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=xUtdDnEhkMMC&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12#v=onepage&q&f=false
Source: Autumn Leaves, Philosophical eLibrary, 2012, (Feuillets d'automne, 1941, trans. Jeanine Parisier Plottel)

Source: P.S. I Love You

Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci...
Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Gallimard, 1968.

II-II, q. 26, art. 6
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

As quoted in Believing in Ourselves (1992) by Armand Eisen, p. 39

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: 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.

Variant: Are you willing to die for what you believe in? The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe.
Source: Eragon

Attributed to Winston Churchill in The Prodigal Project : Book I : Genesis (2003) by Ken Abraham and Daniel Hart, p. 224 and other places, though no source attribution is given. It actually derives from an advertising campaign for Budweiser beer in the late 1930s.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/03/success-final/

Variant: The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Responding to the priest who had accompanied her to the foot of the guillotine, who had whispered, "Courage, madame! Now is the time for courage." Quoted in Women of Beauty and Heroism (1859) by Frank B. Goodrich, p. 301.
Variant translations:
Courage! The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me.
To the juror, Abbé Girard, shortly before her death, quoted in Marie-Antoinette a la Conciergerie (du ler août au 16 octobre 1793) 2nd edition (1864) by M. Émile Campardon
Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me.
As quoted in Marie Antoinette (2008) by Jane Bingham, p. 39

Variant translations:&lt;p&gt;But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Thuc.+2.40.3&lt;p&gt;And they are most rightly reputed valiant, who though they perfectly apprehend both what is dangerous and what is easy, are never the more thereby diverted from adventuring. (translation by Thomas Hobbes http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&amp;staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=771&amp;chapter=90127&amp;layout=html&amp;Itemid=27)&lt;p&gt; <br class="br">Book II, 2.40-[3] <br class="br">History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Niemand kann dir die Brücke bauen, auf der gerade du über den Fluß des Lebens schreiten mußt, niemand außer dir allein.
“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 129
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Anonymous American proverb; since 1998 this has often been attributed to Mark Twain on the internet, but no contemporary evidence of him ever using it has been located. <br class="br">Variants: <br class="br">It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that matters. <br class="br">&quot;Stub Ends of Thoughts&quot; by Arthur G. Lewis, a collection of sayings, in Book of the Royal Blue Vol. 14, No. 7 (April 1911), cited as the earliest known occurrence in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, edited by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, p. 232 <br class="br">It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins. <br class="br">Anonymous quote in the evening edition of the East Oregonian (20 April 1911) <br class="br">What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it&#x27;s the size of the fight in the dog. <br class="br">Dwight D. Eisenhower, declaring his particular variant on the proverbial assertion in Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast (31 January 1958) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11229 <br class="br">Misattributed

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Context: There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html <br class="br">Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You&#x27; https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&amp;q=bowlines#v=onepage&amp;q=bowlines&amp;f=false&#x27; by H. Jackson Brown. <br class="br">Misattributed

However, see also the attributed quote "desperate courage makes One a majority."
Attributed to Jackson by Robert F. Kennedy in his "Foreword" to the "Young Readers Memorial Edition" of John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, and by Ronald Reagan in nominating Robert Bork to the US Supreme Court, this has never been found in Jackson's writings, and there is no record of him having declared it. Somewhat similar statements are known to have been made by others:
A man with God is always in the majority. ~ John Knox
Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one. ~ Henry David Thoreau
One on God's side is a majority ~ Wendell Phillips
Misattributed

Attributed without citation in Gary Ninneman, C.I.A.: Church in Atrophy (Xulon Press, 2006), p. 167. This is possibly a confusion with John Augustus Shedd.

Variant: The greatest test of courage is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto

In recent years this has often been misquoted as: "Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish".
Oration at Plymouth (1802)
Context: Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions.

Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

Source: Castle Roogna

Variant: Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

Source: Time Enough for Love

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym‎ [O Demônio e a srta Prym] (2000), p. x; this has also been misquoted as "A moment is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny."
Context: When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

As quoted in Teen Ink : What Matters (2003) by Stephanie H. Meyer, John Meyer, and Peggy Veljkovic, p. 309

Pericles' Funeral Oration
History of the Peloponnesian War

As quoted in Homage to Greece (1943)

This comes from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, part 1, chapter 1.
Misattributed

Book XV, 50, in his account of Subrius Flavus’ passing thought of assassinating Nero while the emperor sang on stage.
Variant translation: "but desire of escape, foe to all great enterprises, held him back."
Annals (117)

Jesus' Course in Miracles (2000) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 162

Count Alarcos: A Tragedy Act IV, sc. i (1839).
Books

Misattributed

Niebuhr's preferred form, as declared by his widow
The Serenity Prayer (c. 1942)
Variant: God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Other

This has been attributed to Mansfield on the internet, but no published source by her or any other author has been located.
Misattributed

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776&ndash;1783)
Context: It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man.

1910s, Citizenship in a Republic (1910)
Context: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

Source: Demian (1919), p. 123
Context: People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. It was a scandal that a breed of fearless and sinister people ran around freely, so they attached a nickname and a myth to these people to get even with them, to make up for the many times they had felt afraid.

Book II, 2.43
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II

Introduction
The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
Context: "... Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.