Quotes About Courage

i swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. we must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented

The revolver was black and nearly new. I was afraid to even touch it, for in it lay all the whole difference between what I was and what I was going to be.

From Jeff Greenfield: I once asked Elie Wiesel Are you an optimist or a pessimist? An optimist, he said. I have to be.

I believe it was Jean Améry who noted that the first to bow to the oppressor's system and to adopt its doctrines and methods were the intellectuals. But not all of them. Not the rabbis and priests, who, after all, were intellectuals too. With a single exception, no rabbi agreed to become a kapo. All refused to barter their own survival by becoming tools of the hangman. All preferred to die rather than serve death. The lessons of the prophets and the sages became shields for them. On

Why should I be afraid? No one has hurt me. Winter nights are quiet here. If some stars are soaked with blood, it is because the sun has penetrated the dark sweet body. Night is screaming, and its screams become stars, don't you see? But that has nothing to do with US; so why should I be afraid of Night?

He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things. Others flatly said that he had gone mad.

Jews, listen to me,' she cried. I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames.

London radio, which we listened to every evening, announced encouraging news: the daily bombings of Germany and Stalingrad, the preparation of the Second Front. And so we, the Jews of Sighet, waited for better days that surely were soon to come.

This was the first story I had ever heard in which the Jews were not the ones to be afraid. Until this moment I had believed that the mission of the Jews was to represent the trembling of history rather than the wind which made it tremble

The ghetto was not guarded. One could enter and leave as one pleased. Maria, our former maid, came to see us. Sobbing, she begged us to come with her to her village where she had prepared a safe shelter. My father wouldn't hear of it. He told me and my big sisters,"If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one …" Naturally, we refused to be separated.

At the gate, the sign proclaimed that work meant freedom.

We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were no longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life.

Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

There is an old Jewish story, an ordinary Jewish joke. A father was teaching his little son to be less afraid and have more courage. "Jump," he said, "and I will catch you." And the little boy trusted him and the little boy jumped. And when his father caught him he felt filled with love. And when he didn't, he was filled with something else…something more. Life. (From the movie 'Then She Found Me.')

Selling the Lite of Heaven by Suzanne Strempek Shea

When we become sorry for ourselves we make our misfortunes harder to bear, because we lose courage and can't think without bias.

Luckily Rollan was more unflappable. He stepped forward, bravely brandishing his long dagger, however pathetic it looked compared to the teeth of Cabaro.

You have to learn when to ignore suffering so that you're strong enough to fight it when the time is right.

Are you ready? he asks. Just remember, there's nothing to be afraid of, anytime, ever. Life is one hundred percent adventure.

Him and his Life is all adventure stuff. He says, Don't think too hard about it. Just ask yourself this: what would you do if you weren't afraid?

The world cries for men who are strong; strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer.

If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.

God's command 'Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature' was the categorical imperative. The question of personal safety was wholly irrelevant.

If men and women were surer of their God there would be more genuine manliness, womanliness, and godliness in the world, and a whole lot less fear of each other.