Quotes About Courage

No, when I refer to "creative living," I am speaking more broadly. I'm talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.

Go back to bed so that, when the tempest comes, you'll be strong enough to deal with it. And the tempest is coming, dear one. Very soon. But not tonight.

Never explain yourself, Alma. It makes you appear weak.

We can do it, whether it can be done or not." Eventually, all of us will be called upon to do the thing that cannot be done.

Those who are ill-prepared to endure the battle for survival should perhaps never have attempted living in the first place.

Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes. (quoting Jack Gilbert)

This is why we have to be careful of how we handle our fear—because I've noticed that when people try to kill off their fear, they often end up inadvertently murdering their creativity in the process.

You learn to smile even in you liver?' 'Even in my lire, Ketut. Big smile in my liver.

You do not need anybody's permission to live a creative life.

If faith were rational, it wouldn't be - by definition - faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be...a prudent insurance policy.

I am so consumed by wonder at their bravery. These people have left their families and lives behind for a few weeks to go into silent retreat amidst a crowd of perfect strangers in India. Not everybody does this in their lifetime.

My own glints of darkness did not frighten him; he had such darkness of his own that nobody else's shadows scared him.

You know, it's a funny thing. The only Romance language Felipe doesn't happen to speak is Italian. But I go ahead and say it to him anyway, just as we're about to jump. I say: 'Attraversiamo.' Let's cross over.

Of course nobody is required to stand in the field of honor...If you find it too challenging, you may always exit, and then you can remain a child. But if you wish to be a person of character, I'm afraid this is the only way. But it may be painful.

Back off, Jack-I got four brothers protecting my ass,' and I just rode on by him

The truth is, you need your fear, for obvious reasons of basic survival.

If you don't learn to travel comfortably alongside your fear, then you'll never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting.

Never apologize for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it. You did your best with what you knew, and you worked with what you had, in the time that you were given. You were invited, and you showed up, and you simply cannot do more than that.

Fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.

The only unforgivable crime is to cut short the experiment of one's own life before its natural end. To do so is a weakness and a pity—for the experiment of life will cut itself off soon enough, in all our cases, and one may just as well have the courage and the curiosity to stay in the battle until one's eventual and inevitable demise. Anything less than a fight for endurance is cowardly. Anything less than a fight for endurance is a refusal of the great covenant of life.

Most of all, though, he asked his students to be brave. Without bravery, he instructed, they would never be able to realize the vaulting scope of their own capacities. Without bravery, they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known.

It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back.

Not everyone is meant to charge through the world, carrying a spear.

Most dangerously of all, such thinking assumes that if you cannot win, then you must not continue to play.