Quotes About Courage

Madeleine K. Albright

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.

Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

You have to let it all hang out, let go of the ideas that were more comfortable and embrace some of the sadness in your life.

If you're trapped in a room, and nobody is coming to save you, what can you do? You have to bang on the walls and break the windows. You have to climb out and save yourself. It's obvious, Li-ling, that crying doesn't help a person live.

If they want to come for you, they will come, and it doesn't matter what you read or what you failed to read. The books on your shelves, the music you cherish, the past lives you've lived, all these details are just an excuse.

She did not know how or why, but now that she understood, now that she had come to a decision, the old fears had drained away.

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open.

Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. ... He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what is means to be alive.

Bold action and bold manner are not the same.

Timidity creates nothing.

They leaned towards him, like flowers to the sun, drinking in his luster. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all.

He did not fear ridicule, he had never known it.

He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

Pride became us—heroes were never modest.

Do you think Aristos Achaion fights in hopeless wars?

The world is an ugly place. We must live in it.

That is what exile meant: no one was coming, no one ever would. There was fear in that knowledge, but after my long night of terrors it felt small and inconsequential. The worst of my cowardice had been sweated out. In its place was a giddy spark. I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.

Yet you would dare to stay?" "I dare anything," he said. And that is how we came to be lovers.

I will not sentence myself to such a living death.

I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.

courage is not a matter of age, but true-made spirits.