C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Courage
God holds with the strong.
The best hearts are ever the bravest.
Courage is adversity’s lamp.
To bear is to conquer our fate.
Courage leads to heaven; fear, to death.
Much danger makes great hearts most resolute.
A courage to endure and to obey.
Courage never to submit or yield.
Courage mounteth with occasion.
A man of courage is also full of faith.
A stout heart may be ruined in fortune but not in spirit.
Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.
The first mark of valor is defence.
Whatever enlarges hope will exalt courage.
Treason seldom dwells with courage.
A spirit superior to every weapon.
Hold the Fort! I am coming.
Courage in danger is half the battle.
Fortune and Love befriend the bold.
Courage of the soldier awakes the courage of woman.
Courage is temperamental, scientific, ideal.
Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.
It is courage that vanquishes in war, and not good weapons.
Courage makes a man more than himself; for he is then himself plus his valor.
True courage scorns to vent her prowess in a storm of words.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.
Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really are.
God is the brave man’s hope and not the coward’s excuse.
There is no courage but in innocence; no constancy but in an honest cause.
Courage is, on all hands, considered as an essential of high character.
It is in great dangers that we see great courage.
Fortune can take away riches, but not courage.
True courage is like a kite: a contrary wind raises it higher.
Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.
Most men have more courage than even they themselves think they have.
The man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage.
Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.
Hail, Cæsar, those who are about to die salute thee.
He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.
The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.
If we survive danger, it steels our courage more than anything else.
Small in number, but their valor tried in war, and glowing.
Courage is a virtue of no doubtful seeming; there can be no contradiction, no diversity of opinion, about it.
Courage, when it is not heroic self-sacrifice, is sometimes a modification and sometimes a result of faith.
To bear other people’s afflictions, every one has courage enough and to spare.
Courage, like cowardice, is undoubtedly contagious, but some persons are not liable to catch it.
When moral courage feels that it is in the right, there is no personal daring of which it is incapable.
Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.
Who hath not courage to revenge will never find generosity to forgive.
Be courageous. Be independent. Only remember where the true courage and independence come from.
Go on and increase in valor, O boy! this is the path to immortality.
Whenever you do what is holy, be of good cheer, knowing that God Himself takes part with rightful courage.
Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience.
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.
It does not matter a feather whether a man be supported by patron or client, if he himself wants courage.
Before putting yourself in peril, it is necessary to foresee and fear it; but when one is there, nothing remains but to despise it.
It is not our criminal actions that require courage to confess, but those which are ridiculous and foolish.
Not only does the bull attack its foe with its crooked horns, but the injured sheep will fight its assailant.
He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion.
The wounded gladiator forswears all fighting, but soon forgetting his former wound resumes his arms.
There is no impossibility to him who stands prepared to conquer every hazard; the fearful are the failing.
The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character.
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.
Troops would never be deficient in courage, if they could only know how deficient in it their enemies were.
Fear to do base, unworthy things is valor; if they be done to us, to suffer them is valor too.
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause.
Consult the honor of religion more, and your personal safety less. Is it for the honor of religion (think you) that Christians should be as timorous as hares to start at every sound?
Remember, now, when you meet your antagonist, do everything in a mild, agreeable manner. Let your courage be as keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword.
I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valor so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship.
The most sublime courage I have ever witnessed has been among that class too poor to know they possessed it, and too humble for the world to discover it.
The moral courage that will face obloquy in a good cause is a much rarer gift than the bodily valor that will confront death in a bad one.
This is the way to cultivate courage: First, by standing firm on some conscientious principle, some law of duty. Next, by being faithful to truth and right on small occasions and common events. Third, by trusting in God for help and power.
To do an evil action is base; to do a good action without incurring danger is common enough; but it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risks every thing.
To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness, In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to rampart.
The truest courage is always mixed with circumspection; this being the quality which distinguishes the courage of the wise from the hardiness of the rash and foolish.
A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury; for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.
Courage is poorly housed that dwells in numbers; the lion never counts the herd that are about him, nor weighs how many flocks he has to scatter.
Courage is like the diamond,—very brilliant; not changed by fire, capable of high polish, but except for the purpose of cutting hard bodies, useless.
Women and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are endangered.
Courage, considered in itself or without reference to its causes, is no virtue, and deserves no esteem. It is found in the best and the worst, and is to be judged according to the qualities from which it springs and with which it is conjoined.
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. Our blood is nearer and dearer to us than our money, and our life than our estate.
Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.
Courage ought to be guided by skill, and skill armed by courage. Neither should hardiness darken wit, nor wit cool hardiness. Be valiant as men despising death, but confident as unwonted to be overcome.
Courage is incompatible with the fear of the death; but every villain fears death: therefore no villain can be brave. He may, indeed, possess the courage of a rat, and fight with desperation, when driven into a corner.
I like to read about Moses best, in th’ Old Testament. He carried a hard business well through, and died when other folks were going to reap the fruits; a man must have courage to look after his life so, and think what’ll come of it after he’s dead and gone.
Courage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing itself of them; and in this sense Fortune may be said to favor fools by those who, however prudent in their opinion, are deficient in valor and enterprise.
Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
True courage is the result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable. Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins, and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and of religion, will carry us farther than all the force of mechanism.
Let us not despair too soon, my friend. Men’s words are ever bolder than their deeds, and many a one who now appears resolute to meet every extremity with eager zeal, will on a sudden find in their breast a heart which he wot not of.
What we want is men with a little courage to stand up for Christ. When Christianity wakes up, and every child that belongs to the Lord is willing to speak for Him, is willing to work for Him, and, if need be, willing to die for Him, then Christianity will advance, and we shall see the work of the Lord prosper.
There is a contemptibly quiet path for all those who are afraid of the blows and clamor of opposing forces. There is no honorable fighting for a man who is not ready to forget that he has a head to be battered and a name to be bespattered. Truth wants no champion who is not as ready to be struck as to strike for her.
True courage has so little to do with anger, that there lies always the strongest suspicion against it where this passion is highest. The true courage is the cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene, pleasant, and free.
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp, the latter for council; but to constitute a great man, both are necessary.
Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile “gentle” because courageous.
True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free. Rage, we know, can make a coward forget himself and fight. But what is done in fury or anger can never be placed to the account of courage.
An intrepid courage is at best but a holiday kind of virtue, to be seldom exercised, and never but in cases of necessity; affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, I mean good-nature, are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion should be left open. They will carry over to the enemy nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an encumbrance when once the sword is drawn.
Courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it, and, when it is only a kind of instinct in the soul, breaks out on all occasions, without judgment or discretion. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.
“Be bold!” first gate; “Be bold, be bold, and evermore be bold,” second gate; “Be not too bold!” third gate.
Religion gives a man courage.***I mean the higher moral courage which can look danger in the face unawed and undismayed; the courage that can encounter loss of ease, of wealth, of friends, of your own good name; the courage that can face a world full of howling and of scorn—ay, of loathing and of hate; can see all this with a smile, and, suffering it all, can still toil on, conscious of the result, yet fearless still.
In the whole range of earthly experience, no quality is more attractive and ennobling than moral courage. Like that mountain of rock which towers aloft in the Irish Sea, the man possessed of this principle is unmoved by the swelling surges which fret and fume at his feet. And yet, unlike that same Ailsa Craig, he is sensitive beyond measure to every adverse influence—battling against it, and triumphing over it by a power which proceeds from God’s throne, and pervades his entire being.
Courage, by keeping the senses quiet and the understanding clear, puts us in a condition to receive true intelligence, to make computations upon danger, and pronounce rightly upon that which threatens us. Innocence of life, consciousness of worth, and great expectations, are the best foundations of courage. These ingredients make a richer cordial than youth can prepare; they warm the heart at eighty, and seldom fail in operation.
Let him not imagine who aims at greatness that all is lost by a single adverse cast of fortune; for if fortune has at one time the better of courage, courage may afterwards recover the advantage. He who is prepossessed with the assurance of overcoming, at least overcomes the fear of failure; whereas he who is apprehensive of losing, loses in reality all hopes of subduing. Boldness and power are such inseparable companions that they appear to be born together; and when once divided, they both decay and die at the same time.