Courage

Quotes About Courage

Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. -- Alfieri

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.—Shaftesbury.

Much danger makes great hearts most resolute.—Marston.

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.—Richter.

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.—Jones of Nayland.

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.—Colton.

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.—Cervantes.

COURAGE.

Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage--an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.
Great in itself, not praises of the crowd,
Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war, are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
_Love and a Bottle: Dedication_. G. FARQUHAR.

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die.
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
_Morituri Salutamus_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.

MACBETH. If we should fail,--
LADY MACBETH. We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.

What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
_Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4_. SHAKESPEARE.

"Brave boys," he said, "be not dismayed,
For the loss of one commander,
For God will be our king this day,
And I'll be general under."
_From the Battle of the Boyne. Old Ballad_.

By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavor for defence,
For courage mounteth with occasion.
_King John, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.

Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5_. SHAKESPEARE.

Danger knows full well
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.
_Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.

No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
_Prologue to Mr. Addison's Cato_. A. POPE.

Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?--Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And fade him follow.
_Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.

"You fool! I tell you no one means you harm."
"So much the better," Juan said, "for them."
_Don Juan_. LORD BYRON.

The intent and not the deed
Is in our power; and therefore who dares greatly
Does greatly.
_Barbarossa_. J. BROWN.

False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan,
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
_Lochiel's Warning_. T. CAMPBELL.