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Courage

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“(Alternate version.) A brave man will kill you with a sword, a coward with a kiss.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.”
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: September 1913, st. 3
“The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone. For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own. Sing, and the hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air. The echoes bound to a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Running away from fear is fear; fighting pain is pain; trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought.”
Alan Watts (1915–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thank you all for coming and putting on a brave face. To Will Smith: Stay strong and I got your back… April Fools. You’re a d***. I'm not here to humiliate Will Smith. He gets enough of that at home.”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are temperate and brave; and not for the reason that the world gives. For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason. ...Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was born, I think, with the desire to make beautiful books — brave books that would preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken joy and magnanimity.”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy them, but now they call this free will. At least the Greeks were being honest.”
Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s amazing, I can’t even believe it. I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world, it is a dangerous world out there. It’s like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An interview on The Howard Stern Show, 1997, archived by People
“So an out-of-control wild man kills beautiful Ashli Babbitt, a true Patriot, who was the only one killed on January 6th. Her mother goes to protest her death and memory, and they arrest her mother. Something has to be done about these Communists and Marxists that are taking over and destroying our Country. Pray for Ashli, and her wonderful, brave mother!”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 8 January 2023 gab
“What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Politically Correct" (1991).
“Those unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits, reached, in their glorious career that last highest point of nobleness beyond which human power cannot go. They died for their country.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The days of the Long Cold are done. Because of this one brave, new-thinking man, summer lives in the winter cave.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. A Brave and Startling Truth.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is possible and imperative that we discover A brave and startling truth.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...For millennia, wrongdoers overtaken by punishment have felt no different than Spinoza with regard to their 'offence': 'something has gone unexpectedly wrong here', not 'I ought not to have done that'–, they submitted to punishment as you submit to illness or misfortune or death, with that brave, unrebellious fatalism that still gives the Russians...”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), Second Essay, 15.
“You're my bondage and my freedom, my flesh burning like a naked summer night, you're my country. Hazel eyes marbled green, you're awesome, beautiful, and brave, you're my desire always just out of reach.”
Nâzım Hikmet (1901–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know you are brave and unselfish people, making sacrifices for a great principle but I cannot join you. I believe in the present effort which the allies are making to suppress German militarism. I would approve of America going to their assistance. I would enlist to that end, if ever there be a situation where I believe I could do more with my hands than I could with my pen.”
Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to the "Anti-Enlistment League" organized by Jessie Wallace Hughan (20 September 1915)
“Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress. Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought. Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every superstition in the world that is now held sacred has been made so by mothers, by fathers, by the recollections of home. I know what it has cost the noble, the brave, the tender, to throw away every superstition, although sanctified by the memory of those they loved.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that imposed Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loosed From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave; To all which Jove's will gave effect; from whom first strife begun Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.”
Henry Rollins (born 1961) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Talk is Cheap Volume 1 (1998)
“To Monsieur Eiffel the Engineer, the brave builder of so gigantic and original a specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu.”
Thomas Edison (1847–1931) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When Thomas Edison visited the Eiffel Tower during the 1889 World's Fair, he signed the guestbook with this message, as quoted in The Tallest Tower by Joseph Harris, p. 95
“Listen, son—most women are damn fools and children. But they’ve got more range than we’ve got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better—and the vile ones are viler.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know that color does not matter to me. I want to know other things about a man. Is his word good? Does he meet his obligations? Does he do honest work? Is he brave? Will he stand up and be counted?”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m sure we’d all rather be clever than brave.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor; He, who has mingled in the fray Of duty that the brave endure, Must have made foes! If you have none, Small is the work that you have done, You've hit no traitor on the hip, You've dashed no cup from perjured lip, You've never turned the wrong to right, You've been a coward in the fight.”
Charles Mackay (author) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Enemies", in Selected Poems and Songs of Charles Mackay (1888), p. 159
“It was indeed a great day not only for the Sikhs but also for the whole of India when Guru Govinda, defying the age-long conventions of the Hindu society, made his followers one, by breaking down all barriers of caste and thereby made them free to inherit the true blessings of a self-respecting manhood. Sikhism has a brave message to the people and it has a noble record.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Mahadevi Desai, 4 January 1937. Quoted in The Essential Tagore, Cambridge, Massachusetts : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011.
“It doesn't matter who you love, it's that you love. Who cares if men marry men or women marry women? In San Francisco you don't care, and I applaud that. And I applaud Mayor Newsom for being so brave.”
Megan Mullally (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Der brave Mann denkt an sich selbst zulezt, Vertrau auf Gott und rette den Bedrängten.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) said by 1805 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humoured, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich — that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.”
Henry Fielding (1707–1754) said by 1754 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I arrive at the end of this review having done my duty as a critic. I have described the movie accurately and you have a good idea what you are in for if you go to see it. Most of you will not. I cannot argue with you. Some of you will — the brave and the curious. You embody the spirit of the man who first wondered what it would taste like to eat an oyster.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Gerry (28 February 2003)
“Be brave, and check the rising tears That dim your lovely eyes.”
Kalidasa (active around 400) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Act 4 (tr. Arthur W. Ryder, 1912)
“A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Pascal Covici (1952)
“They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.”
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) said by 1637 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave.”
Tim O'Brien (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is "I don't know.”
Penn Jillette (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I dedicate this book to the memory of my friend Richard Flisges, who died as a brave soldier of work in a mine at Schliersee on the 19th of July 1923.”
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) first seen 1923 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dieses Buch widme ich dem Andenken meines Freundes Richard Flisges, der am 19. Juli 1923 in einem Bergwerk bei Schliersee als tapferer Soldat der Arbeit in den schweren Tod ging.
“Our life here is truly hellish. Fortunately, my soldiers are very brave and tougher than the enemy.”
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Corinne Lütfü, from the Gallipoli peninsula (20 July 1915) as translated in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey (2002) by Andrew Mango.
“Now, make no mistake: History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn't need strongmen; it needs strong institutions. Now, America will not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation. The essential truth of democracy is that each nation determines its own destiny.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Barack Obama: "Address to the Ghanaian Parliament in Accra, Ghana," July 11, 2009. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
“With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And if our future Lies on the final line Are we brave enough To see the signals and the signs?”
Harry Chapin (1942–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They came here—the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened—to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You took off your clothes and left on the light, You stood there so brave, you used to be shy, Each feature improved, each movement refined, And eyes like a showroom.”
Conor Oberst (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From what I know about alcoholism, I'd say there's nothing romantic, nothing grand, nothing heroic, nothing brave — nothing like that about drinking. It's a real coward's death.”
Warren Zevon (1947–2003) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Warren Zevon's Resurrection: How he saved himself from a coward's death" by Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone (19 March 1981)