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Quotes about courage

191 quotes from 139 people

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Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Richard III (c. 1593), Act V, Scene III, spoken by King RichardIn context
- Morality
- Power
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood
William Shakespeare1564–1616Henry V (1599), Act III, Scene I, spoken by King HenryIn context
- War & Peace
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Henry V (1599), Act IV, Scene III, spoken by King HenryIn context
- Friendship
- War & Peace
O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
William Shakespeare1564–1616Henry IV, Part 1 (c. 1597), Act I, Scene III, spoken by HotspurIn context
- Risk
Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Maxims for Revolutionists (1903), #89
- Virtue
When a life is at stake and it’s your child, you become fearless in a lot of ways. I mean, you just become fanatic. Nothing ever gets done unless it’s done by a fanatic.
Martin Sheenborn 1940AARP magazine interview (2008)
- Children
What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?
Mary Shelley1797–1851Frankenstein (1818), Letter IIIIn context
- Motivation & Goals
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you⁠—
Ye are many⁠—they are few.
Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822The Masque of Anarchy (1819)In context
- Freedom
I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces.
Upton Sinclair1878–1968Letter to the Louis D. Oaks, Los Angeles Chief of Police (17 May 1923)
- Morality
Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
Sydney Smith1771–1845Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)
- Knowledge
If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930Wimps Versus Barbarians, May 21, 2013
Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it.
Richard Stallmanborn 1953Thus Spake Stallman (2000)
They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Treasure Island (1883), Part One: The Old Buccaneer, Chapter IVIn context
War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don’t want to be a hero. It takes courage to sit down and be counted.
Tom Stoppard1937–2025Travesties (1974), Act I
- War & Peace
Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty.
Harriet Beecher Stowe1811–1896Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Volume I, Chapter VIIIn context