“And a third danger is timidity. Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.”

— Robert F. Kennedy

Day of Affirmation Address (1966)

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Robert F. Kennedy 72

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

Dave Ramsey (1960) American financial advisor

Source: The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

“The essential quality of life is living' the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution; and we are part of it.”

John Wyndham book The Chrysalids

Source: The Chrysalids

“The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress.”

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

Day of Affirmation Address (1966)
Context: The help and the leadership of South Africa or of the United States cannot be accepted if we, within our own country or in our relationships with others, deny individual integrity, human dignity, and the common humanity of man. If we would lead outside our borders, if we would help those who need our assistance, if we would meet our responsibilities to mankind, we must first, all of us, demolish the borders which history has erected between men within our own nations — barriers of race and religion, social class and ignorance.
Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. 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 love of ease.

“It is not great men who change the world, but weak men in the hands of a great God.”

Brother Yun (1958) Chinese christian house church leader

Source: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

“There is today almost no scientific theory which was held when, say, the Industrial Revolution began about 1760. Most often today's theories flatly contradict those of 1760; many contradict those of 1900. In cosmology, in quantum mechanics, in genetics, in the social sciences, who now holds the beliefs that seemed firm sixty years ago? Yet the society of scientists has survived these changes without a revolution, and honors the men whose beliefs it no longer shares. No one has recanted abjectly at a trial before his colleagues. The whole structure of science has been changed and no one has been either disgraced or deposed. Through all the changes of science, the society of scientists is flexible and single-minded together, and evolves and rights itself. In the language of science, it is a stable society.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

as quoted in American Journal of Physics, 44(2), p176, 1976-02
unsorted
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)

“The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a complex and highly developed society, and who believe that man fulfills his nature and reaches his proper stature in this circumstance. The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance; the particular courage it asks for is that which is exercised in the support of these virtues. The qualities of intelligence which it chiefly prizes are modulation and flexibility.”

Lionel Trilling (1905–1975) American academic

Introduction
The Portable Matthew Arnold (Viking Press, 1949)

“Those who struggle to change the world see themselves as noble, even tragic figures. Yet most of those who work for world betterment are not rebels against the scheme of things. They seek consolation for a truth they are too weak to bear. At bottom, their faith that the world can be transformed by human will is a denial of their own mortality.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

As it is: The consolation of action (p. 193)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

“I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Salon interview (2001)

“The women who changed the world never needed to show anything other than their own intelligence.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Source: Cited in Addio a Rita Levi Montalcini, scienziata e donna straordinaria http://www.panorama.it/scienza/rita-levi-montalcini-morta/, Panorama.it, 30 dicembre 2012.

“Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.”

Thomas Hardy book Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays, ch. XLIII
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

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