Quotes About Courage

Rainer Maria Rilke

Hoe zouden wij die oude mythen kunnen vergeten die aan de wieg van alle volkeren staan – de mythen over draken die op het allerlaatste ogenblik in een prinses veranderen; misschien zijn alle draken uit ons leven wel prinsessen die er alleen maar op wachten ons eens mooi en moedig te zien. Misschien is al het verschrikkelijkste in diepste wezen wel het hulpeloze dat ons om hulp vraagt. Borgeby Gård Flädie, Zweden, 12 augustus 2017

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Happily, somewhere in the heart of darkness, my optimism prevailed.

Tal vez todo lo que nos asusta es, en su más profunda esencia, algo indefenso que requiere nuestro amor.

We have no reason to be mistrustful of our world, for it is not against us. If it holds terrors they are our terrors.

We have no reason to be mistrustful of our world... If it holds terrors they are our terrors.

si disponemos nuestra vida según el principio que nos aconseja mantenernos siempre en lo difícil, lo que nos parecía extraño, se nos transformará en algo infinitamente fiel y digno de toda confianza. [...] Quizá todos los dragones de nuestra vida sean princesas que sólo esperan vernos una vez hermosos y valientes. Quizá todo lo horrible, en el fondo, sea sólo una forma de desamparo que solicita nuestra ayuda.

You said live out loud, and die you said lightly, and over and over again you said be.

N'est-il pas temps que ceux qui aiment se libèrent de l'objet aimé et le surmontent, frémissants ? Ainsi le trait vainc la corde pour être, rassemblé dans le bond, plus que lui-même. Car nulle part il n'est d'arrêt.

The myths about the dragons who at the last moment turn into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses, only waiting for the day when they will see us handsome and brave?

am glad, in a word, that you have withstood the dangers of slipping into all this, and that somewhere you are living alone and courageous in a rough reality. May the year to come maintain and strengthen you in it. Ever yours, R. M. Rilke

If we imagine our being as a room of any size, it seems that most of us know only a single corner of that room, a spot by the window, a narrow strip on which we keep walking back and forth. That gives a kind of security. But isn't insecurity with all its dangers so much more human? We are not prisoners of that room.

How much childhood is in that picture, and how everything is already settled there in the quiet, so indescribably lonely state of being a child, at the time when seated in an armchair one cannot touch the floor and with immense courage just keeps sitting there in that vast space which begins all around one and goes on and on. It is a very sweet and meaningful small picture. Thank you for letting me see it.

Deja que todo te suceda: la belleza y el terror. Solo sigue adelante. Ningún sentimiento es definitivo

No fundo é esta a única coragem que se exige de nós: sermos corajosos diante do que é mais estranho, mais maravilhoso e mais inexplicável entre tudo com que nos deparamos.

que una cosa sigui difícil ha de ser per a nosaltres un motiu més per fer-la. estimar també és bo: perquè l'amor és difícil. Estimar de persona a persona: això és potser el més difícil que se'ns ha encomanat, el més extrem, l'última prova, el treball per al qual tot altre treball és només una preparació.

Tehlike, emniyette olmaktan daha güvenli.

Von deinen Sinnen hinausgesandt, geh bis an deiner Sehnsucht Rand; gieb mir Gewand. Hinter den Dingen wachse als Brand, dass ihre Schatten, ausgespannt, immer mich ganz bedecken. Lass dir Alles geschehn: Schönheit und Schrecken. Man muss nur gehn: Kein Gefühl ist das fernste.

Darum können junge Menschen, die Anfänger in allem sind, die Liebe noch nicht: sie müssen sie lernen. Mit dem ganzen Wesen, mit allen Kräften, versammelt um ihr einsames, banges, aufwärts schlagendes Herz, müssen sie lieben lernen.

And the police got nervous and they began to kick us in our backs and stomachs, and the crowd shouted 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!' and someone took a kerosene tin and began to beat it, and someone took a cattle-bell and began to ring it, and they cried, 'With them, brothers, with them!' and they leaped and they ducked and they came down to lie beside us, and we shouted 'Mahatma Gandhi ki jai! Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!

If carnage and brutality marked the Abdali/Sikh confrontation, so did guts, on both sides.

Mahatma Gandhiji had unlimited courage, so he could fight against the British at the risk of his life, not by talking of non-violence only. He never retreated when it was necessary to show courage. But what is the use of finding fault with weapons when we have no courage to fight? We were only boasting about non-violence without strength

Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie-- Dust unto dust-- The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die As all men must; Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell-- Too strong to strive-- Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell, Buried alive; But rather mourn the apathetic throng-- The cowed and the meek-- Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong And dare not speak!