Quotes About Courage

Ad astra per alia porci (to the stars on the wings of a pig)

a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.

Olive was way beyond hearing anything, but her chin was set and she was determined to help the pilot so that he would not be too afraid before they hit the earth. She smiled and nodded again. At the end of each stunt he looked back, and each time she encouraged him. Afterward he said over and over, She's the goddamest woman I ever saw. I tore up the rule book and she wanted more. Good Christ, what a pilot she would have made!

Then they asked, What'll we do? And the men replied, I don't know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.

The people don't like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that is so, sir.

There was a man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now? How can we go on without him?

Tom's cowardice was as huge as his courage, as it must be in great men. His violence balanced his tenderness, and himself was a pitted battlefield of his own forces.

She controlled her face and whipped the fear from it. "You're just doing it because you're honest, is that it? You're just too sugar sweet to live.

We have never understood why men mount the heads of animals and hang them up to look down on their conquerors. Possibly it feels good to these men to be superior to animals, but it does seem that if they were sure of it they would not have to prove it. Often a man who is afraid must constantly demonstrate his courage and, in the case of the hunter, must keep a tangible record of his courage.

Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too.

Maybe a specialist is only a coward, afraid to look out of his little cage. And think what any specialist misses—the whole world over his fence.

Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too. He found that he had started to hum a droning little tune. He turned, walked through the kitchen, and stood in the doorway, looking at Cathy. She smiled weakly at him, and he thought, What a child! What a helpless child! and a surge of love filled him.

and the break would never come as long as fear can turn to wrath.

The honest preachers had energy and go. They fought the devil, no holds barred, boots and eye-gouging permitted. You might get the idea that they howled truth and beauty the way a seal bites out the National Anthem on a row of circus horns.

It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times.

Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that is so, sir.

We learned then that war was not a quick heroic charge but a slow, incredibly complicated matter.

Charles is not afraid. So he could never learn anything of courage.

And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right—the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.

Come back with your shield or on it.

Let any gay and hopeful thing happen to a man, and some chicken goes howling to the block.

Sir Lyonel knew that this sleeping knight would charge to his known defeat with neither hesitation nor despair and finally would accept his death with courtesy and grace as though it were a prize. And suddenly Sir Lyonel knew why Lancelot would gallop down the centuries, spear in rest, gathering men's hearts on his lance head like tilting rings. He chose his side and it was Lancelot's. He brushed a dungfly from the sleeping face.

Liza with her acceptance could take care of tragedy; she had no real hope this side of Heaven.

In a world that was not easy for Alice to bear or understand, flies were the final and malicious burden laid upon her.