Quotes About Courage

It had not really been written to make money—if only it had been! It had been written because he was afraid, afraid of things dark, strange, dangerous, difficult, and deep.

I'm going to pray God," said John—and his voice shook, whether with joy or grief he could not say—"to keep me, and make me strong ... to stand ... to stand against the enemy ... and against everything and everybody ... that wants to cut down my soul.

many of them indeed know better. But as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne.

The fear that I heard in my father's voice, for example, when he realized that I really believed I could do anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when one of us was ill or had fallen down the stairs or strayed too far from the house. It was another fear, a fear that the child, in challenging the white world's assumptions, was putting himself in the path of destruction.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced. As for one's wits, it is just not true that one can live by them – not, that is, if one wishes really to live.

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid.

I was trembling. I thought, if I do not open the door at once and get out of here, I am lost… everything in me screaming No! yet the sum of me sighed Yes.

Not everything that is face can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Anyway, Giovanni's Room is not really about homosexuality. It's the vehicle through which the book moves. Go Tell It on the Mountain, for example, is not about a church, and Giovanni is not really about homosexuality. It's about what happens to you if you're afraid to love anybody. Which is much more interesting than the question of homosexuality.

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

To act is to commit, and to commit is to take risks.

Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed unless it is faced.

People who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.

Just as the birds above our heads circling are singing, knowing that, in what lies before them, the always unknown passage, wind, water, air, the failing light the failing night the blinding sun they must get the journey done. Listen. They have wings and voices are making choices are using what they have. They are aware that, on long journeys, each bears the other, whirring, stirring love occuring in the middle of the terrifying air.

If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring.

I returned here because I was afraid to

the little girl who walked into the Little Rock School House and was spat on was much freer than the white child who sat there with a misconceived notion.

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

A key psychology for leading from good to great is the Stockdale Paradox: Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. UNEXPECTED

Most men would rather die, than think. Many do.

We all know now that the 747 became the flagship jumbo jet of the airline industry, but the decision looks much different from the perspective of the late 1960s. Yet—and this is the key point—Boeing was willing to make the bold move in the face of the risks. As in Boeing's case, the risks do not always come without pain.

When you turn over rocks and look at all the squiggly things underneath, you can either put the rock down, or you can say, 'My job is to turn over rocks and look at the squiggly things,' even if what you see can scare the hell out of you."25 That quote, from Pitney Bowes executive Fred Purdue

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.