Quotes about courage

It was a common characteristic among the warriors—no fear of death, and only pride for their scars, but little thought of all that could happen in between those two extremes.

Life had taught her to be brave, to be patient, to love, to forgive.

Is a man a coward if he realizes that bravery is just a myth the old tell the young so they line up for the meatgrinder?

he reminded himself of his own personal creed, that life was neither something you defended by hiding nor surrendered calmly on other people’s terms, but something you lived bravely, out in the open, and that if you had to lose it, you should also lose it on your own terms. (p201)

Again, be patient. And have courage. Remember, everything passes, even the most unspeakable horrors.

I do this not because I am courageous and honest, but because it is the only way to end the conflict of my deepest soul.

Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point—and does not break.

Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. "He that will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

It’s easy to say that if you were there you would have refused, that you would rather die than participate in the slaughter, but it all looks very different when it’s real, when the moment comes to choose.

All of us fight a battle every day, but we just don’t know it. Love tries to defeat hatred. Bravery destroys fear.

"That's what courage is. If she weren't scared, she wouldn't need courage in the first place."

Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.