Quotes About Courage

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

In fact one is tempted to ask whether there is a single man left ready, for once, to commit an outrageous folly.

Courage is life's only measure.

What every man can do is to make the movement of infinite resignation, and I for my part would not hesitate to pronounce everyone cowardly who wishes to make himself believe he can not do it. With faith it is a different matter. But what every man has not a right to do, is to make others believe that faith is something lowly, or that it is an easy thing, whereas it is the greatest and the hardest. People

It takes a purely human courage to renounce the whole temporal realm in order to gain eternity, but this I do gain and in all eternity can never renounce—it is a self-contradiction. But it takes a paradoxical and humble courage to grasp the whole temporal realm now by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith.

At vove er at miste fodfæstet et kort øjeblik - ikke at vove er at miste sig selv.

People had not so much as the courage and honesty and truth to say to God bluntly, That I cannot agree to, they resorted to hypocrisy and thought they were perfectly secure. pp 168-6

One must see how laughter is feared above all other sorts of attack, how even a man who had boldly encountered mortal peril for a cause that did not concern him, would hardly hesitate to betray father and mother in case the danger were laughter.

For every single individual who escapes into the crowd... flees in cowardice from being a single individual.

For my part I can in a way understand Abraham, but at the same time I apprehend that I have not the courage to speak, and still less to act as he did — but by this I do not by any means intend to say that what he did was insignificant, for on the contrary it is the one only marvel.

Mutismul cel mai sigur nu-i s? taci, ci s? vorbe?ti.

Courage he acquires by learning to fear the still more dreadful.

La angustia les resulta peligrosa a los hombres sin temple, y por eso la silencia, pero, pese a ello, renuncian a hablar de Abraham, y así lo hacen.

Learning to know anxiety is an adventure which every man has to affront…He therefore who has learned rightly to be in anxiety has learned the most important thing.

Unless you grasp that it requires all the strength of spirit to die, that the hero always dies before his death, you will not come particularly far in your observations on life.

Así que, ¡a la una, a las dos y… a las tres!: me lanzo de cabeza a la existencia, pero el salto siguiente, ése no me atrevo a intentarlo, porque no soy capaz de realizar prodigios y me conformo con asombrarme al contemplarlos.

we must be honest, and not interpret this lack of courage as humility, since it is really pride, whereas the courage of faith is the only humble courage.

Por qué nos encontramos a veces con individuos que se avergüenzan de confesar que poseen la fe? Me parece inaudito.

To strive against the whole world is a comfort, to strive with oneself is dreadful.

What Christendom needs at every moment is someone who expresses Christianity uncalculatingly or with absolute recklessness.

Nunca se sabe qué desesperadas ideas pueden ocurrírsele a un hombre desesperado; en ocasiones, hasta los más tímidos y previsores se atreven, en tal estado, a los más audaces actos.

It takes a talent to doubt, it requires no talent at all to despair (pp515)

Only in much fear and trembling is a human being able to speak with God, in much fear and trembling

Surrounded by hordes of people, busy with all sorts of secular matters, more and more shrewd about the ways of the world – such a person forgets himself, forgets his name divinely understood, does not dare to believe in himself, finds it too risky to be himself, far easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, part of the crowd.