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Clare Boothe Luce 7
American writer, politician, ambassador, journalist and ant… 1903–1987Related quotes
“Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.”
"Water", p. 113; this is often quoted as simply: Without courage, all other virtues are useless. <!-- Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951-1989 (1994) p. 207 -->
Source: Desert Solitaire (1968)
Context: Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.
“Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.”
Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 1 : The Courage to Create, p. 13
Context: Courage is not a virtue of value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism.
i.e., self-control or moderation.
Source: The First Step (1892), Ch. VIII
Variant: Heaven is not gained by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies;
And we mount to its summit round by round.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 564.
“The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.”
Attributed
“Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”
In P. Léonard Hansen, Vita mirabilis, 1664, p. 137 https://archive.org/details/wotb_6743752/page/137/mode/2up?view=theater; quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992, § 618 https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1O.HTM.
