“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.”

#155
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Context: Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.

Source: "I Quit, I Think" (1991)

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 7 (p. 166)

The Pathfinder (1998)
Context: It takes courage to be the author of your life. When you are struggling through one of the difficult parts of turning your dreams into reality, you may wonder why you always get stuck with having to put up with so much fear and uncertainty. Why, you wonder, couldn't I feel more courageous, like those other people do. You don't feel courageous because courage is not an emotion. There is no such thing as feeling "courageous". It is an imaginary emotion. Courage consists of doing what you said you would do even when you don't want to. In the face of danger you have a choice to be the delegate of either your commitments or your feelings. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

Source: Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (1952), p. 6

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CVII: On Obedience to the Universal Will

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 68

Source: Black Blood