Quotes about courage
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“Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable and noble kind of love.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

Source: Last and Lost Poems

Love

“You can't test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and waved my arms hard, happy.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: An American Childhood

Happiness

“The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies”

Kate Chopin (1850–1904) American author

Source: The Awakening and Selected Stories

Soul

“Courage moral and physical: 'anima'—the ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd. Courage moral and physical: “anima”—the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Thinking, Sense

“There is, in addition to a courage with which men die; a courage by which men must live.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Men

“Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.”

Ruth Gordon (1896–1985) American playwright and actress

Courageous

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Time, Wise, Courageous

“One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone.”

Gregory David Roberts (1952) Australian writer and bank robber

“As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

“everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

Feeling, Evil

“Life can be wonderful if you're not afraid of it. All it takes is courage, imagination… and a little dough”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Life, Imagination

“This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Life, Youth, World, Imagination

“Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

World

“Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Learning

“To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

standup performance, date unknown[citation needed]
Standup routines

Kiss

“Courage is fear that has said its prayers and decided to go forward anyway.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: I Dare You: Embrace Life with Passion

Fear

“Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Evil

“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

When asked how the world had changed following the September 11, 2001 attacks <br class="br"> Has the world changed? http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)

People, Faith, Religion, Confidence

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.

Understanding

“The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.”

Mary Renault book The Charioteer

Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 77

“It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence (1920), Ch. 33

Life, People, Disease, Way

“The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Children, Age

“I wish I had the courage not to fight and doubt everything… I wish, just once, I could say, 'This. This is good enough. Just because I choose it.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Fight

“Don't wish me happiness — I don't expect to be happy; it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor — I will need them all.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Letter to Corliss Lamont on her engagement (1928)
Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)
Source: Gift from the Sea

Happiness, Sense

“I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love, Hate

“If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 193

World, Question

“Courage, like so many other things, was not something one did or didn't have; it was a decision, a choice.”

Linda Lael Miller (1949) American writer

Source: The Creed Legacy

Decision

“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Children, For Parents, For Mother

“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Source: Fatherhood

Love

“Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage - at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Wisdom, Question, Universe, Science

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you
want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Fear, Home, Confidence, Business

“I lacked the courage to investigate the weaknesses of the wicked, because I discovered they are the same as the weaknesses of the saintly.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: Postscript to the Name of the Rose

“Travel is never a matter of money but of courage”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

Money, Travel

“Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Time, Courageous

“Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything.”

Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) writer

Strong

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons… but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Daughters

“it takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeded.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

“There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Freedom, Suffering

“If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgement.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farnham's Freehold

Source: Farnham's Freehold (1964), Chapter 16 (p. 235)

Fight

“you say you have no courage, but i see it in you. what you did, the burden you agreed to shoulder, took courage. for that, i honor you.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida (1990).
Context: When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.

Motivational

“Tamaki: Having the courage to be able to admit what you love… enjoying what you love… and being true to yourself… Isn't that also what it means to be strong?”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 7

Love, Strong

“Courage originally meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Heart, Courageous