“The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.”

“This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.”

“It takes a strong fish to swim against the current. Even a dead one can float with it.”

“It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.”

“Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.”

“To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.”

“You don't accomplish much by swimming with the mainstream. Hell, a dead fish can do that.”

“Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”

“The Japanese have hit the shores like dead fish. They're just like dead fish washing up on the shores.”

“[American] conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects, but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought. Whether this will happen or not, and if it does to what degree, is partly dependent on the power of resistance in those who represent the opposite pole of the courage to be, the courage to be as oneself.”