Quotes & Sayings About Courage From Books

I come to oil country with a book about radicals who wish for the end of pipelines. But that's not what it's about. It's the friction point of prosperity and concern, ability and disability, the loss of bodily presence and the gain of ghost messages. It's misplaced outrage and well-placed courage. It's banjo song and smoke in your eye. Stories hinge there, swinging this way and that. — Kate Inglis

It's not courage so much as stubbornness," Alice said frankly. Her lips curled back from her teeth in a grim smile. "I don't like to lose. — Django Wexler

All boys wish to be manly; but they often try to become so by copying the vices of men rather than their virtues. They see men drinking, smoking, swearing; so these poor little fellows sedulously imitate such bad habits, thinking they are making themselves more like men. They mistake rudeness for strength, disrespect to parents for independence. They read wretched stories about boy brigands and boy detectives, and fancy themselves heroes when they break the laws, and become troublesome and mischievous. Out of such false influences the criminal classes are recruited. Many a little boy who only wishes to be manly, becomes corrupted and debased by the bad examples around him and the bad literature which he reads. The cure for this is to give him good books, show him truly noble examples from life and history, and make him understand how infinitely above this mock-manliness is the true courage which ennobles human nature. — James Clarke

It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. — Hunter S. Thompson

The first aim of a good college is not to teach books, but the meaning and purpose of life. Hard study and the learning of books are only a means to this end. We develop power and courage and determination and we go out to achieve Truth, Wisdom and Justice. If we do not come to this, the cost of schooling is wasted. — John B. Watson

People think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative. This is not true. We are people whose dreams run in particular ways. Ask a mountain climber what he feels when he sees a mountain; a lion tamer what goes through his mind when he meets a new lion; a doctor confronted with a beautiful malfunctioning body. The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder. — Elizabeth McCracken

Write what you know. Write what you can't forget. Write to give yourself courage and others hope. — Nikki Rosen

She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber ... forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers ... But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter.
Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly lonely.
It was important to have a really good book. — Laura Florand

...'you have to ask yourself though, who are we to stop a war?'

I sigh, wishing that the glittering pinpricks above us were truly stars. It was rare to see any due to the endless cloud cover. 'Who are we not to?' I say, to no one in particular. If we weren't willing to try, then what did that say about us? I try to ignore the pessimistic voice eating away at my thoughts. Change could start with a few, but real change needed thousands. — H.J. Stephens

When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life those whose hours are cold and hard, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truth from heaven; I give eternal blessings for this gift, and thank God for books. — James Freeman Clarke

I was brought up on the books of The Wizard of Oz and my mother told me that these were great philosophies. It was a very simple philosophy, that everybody had a heart, that everybody had a brain, that everybody had courage. These were the gifts that are given to you when you come on this earth, and if you use them properly, you reach the pot at the end of the rainbow. And that pot of gold was a home. And home isn't just a house or an abode, its people, people who love you and that you love. That's a home. — Ray Bolger

Trying to steel her nerves, she walked forward more forcefully, as if this were her choice. As if she were just going to seek out a mystery she forgot. Not a scared, lonely girl in her nightgown with a candle, like some daft heroine from one of the lighter romance books she read. This thought, too, gave her courage; she was Belle, not an idiot. — Liz Braswell

I pick up the list of Benji's five favorite books because we've got work to do:

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. He's a pretentious fuck and a liar.

"Underworld" by Don DeLillo. He's a snob.

"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. He's a spoiled passport-carrying fuck stunted in eighth grade.

"Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" by David Foster Wallace. Enough already.

"The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane. He's got Mayflowers in his blood. — Caroline Kepnes

The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. — James Joyce

I have not the courage to search through books for beautiful prayers ... Unable either to say them all or choose between them, I do as a child would do who cannot read-I say just what I want to say to God, quite simply, and he never fails to understand. — Therese Of Lisieux

True Courage is when you are afraid of something but go through with it anyway — Victor Castelo

Books can lift our spirits, heal our wounds, steel our courage and strengthen our religious resolve. — Scott Cunningham

When I was younger, I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy-girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street ... it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death ... And they should! ... For they are in life. — Roman Payne

We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are there to please ...
We want books that cost their authors a great deal, books where you can feel the years of work, the backache, the writer's block, the author's panic at the thought that he might be lost: his discouragement, his courage, his anguish, his stubbornness, the risk of failure that he has taken. — Laurence Cosse

There is nothing better than expressions in words. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Turn off your radio. Put away your daily paper. Read one review of events a week and spend some time reading good books. They tell too of days of striving and of strife. They are of other centuries and also of our own. They make us realize that all times are perilous, that men live in a dangerous world, in peril constantly of losing or maiming soul and body. We get some sense of perspective reading such books. Renewed courage and faith and even joy to live. — Dorothy Day

The Second World War created the need for a new generation of female heroes. Where could these women look for role models? The women of the previous war had by this time been largely forgotten. Although efforts had been made during the 1920s to memorialize the war's heroes, both men and women, with monuments, books, and films, most Europeans, impatient to forget the war, also forgot its heroes.

But now the memory of their courage was needed and eagerly recalled... — Kathryn J. Atwood

I answer that I try to write true stories but that at a given point the story becomes unbearable because of it's very truth, and then I have to change it. I tell her that I try to tell my story but all of a sudden I can't-I don't have the courage, it hurts too much. And so I embellish everything and describe things not as they happened but the way I wished they happened.
She says, "Yes, there are lives sadder than the saddest of books." I say, "Yes. No book, no matter how sad, can be as sad as a life. — Agota Kristof

If you have decided to change the world, don't read the books about the dimensions of the world! Be like a meteorite; strike the world with your ideas with utter courage and with infinite fearlessness! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

To show that a comedian on stage in India talking about sanitation or in South Africa talking about HIV and AIDS awareness, if you follow the joke into their lives, you can see that, like, oh, these things aren't just contrived in joke books. This is real life. I think the best comedians have that bravery and courage to say, Oh, this is what it is. — Hasan Minhaj

The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. — Charles Sumner

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
- Steinbeck Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech — John Steinbeck

Conservatism is affluent and openhanded, but there is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe that they take somewhat for everythingthey give. I look bigger, but am less; I have more clothes, but am nit so warm; more armor, but less courage; more books, but less wit. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For Heaven's sake, Cousin, resumed Arabella, laughing, how have you spent your Time; and to what Studies have you devoted all your Hours, that you could find none to spare for the Perusal of Books from which all useful Knowlege may be drawn; which give us the most shining Examples of Generosity, Courage, Virtue, and Love; which regulate our Actions, form our Manners, and inspire us with a noble Desire of emulating those great, heroic, and virtuous Actions, which made those Persons so glorious in their Age, and so worthy Imitation in ours? — Charlotte Lennox

As a student I thought there was a formula of some kind that I would get hold of somewhere, and thereby become and artist. There is a formula, but it has not been in books. It is really plain old courage, standing on one's own feet, and forever seeking enlightenment; courage to develop your way, but learning from the other fellow; experimentation with your own ideas, observing for yourself, a rigid discipline of doing over that which you can improve. — Andrew Loomis

You are fond of history! And so are Mr. Allen and my father; and I have two brothers who do not dislike it. So many instances within my small circle of friends is remarkable! At this rate, I shall not pity the writers of history any longer. If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and necessary, I have often wondered at the person's courage that could sit down on purpose to do it. — Jane Austen

You don't know anything about me."
"No, I know not everything about you. But I sense enough to know you have mistaken obsession with drive, guilt with injustice. I know you want to escape what you are, cabbage fairy," he said, reaching for his hood and gloves and tucking them into the waistband of his trousers. "Your desires are no different from my own, I simply have the courage to face them. — F.D. Lee

MFA in a Box is designed to help you to find the courage to put truth into words and to understand that writing is a life-and-death endeavor - but that nothing about a life-and-death endeavor keeps it from being laugh-out-loud funny. — John Rember

People should be courage to read books, it should be made in such way how I changed my opinion how James Patterson did it. It should be done a way in which people should se the advantages of reading a book. — Deyth Banger

Readers understand that the books celebrate female power. In the romance novel, the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on the earth, the human male, to his knees. — Jayne Ann Krentz

And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:
Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth. — Jane Yolen

The first type of man is a follower. He does not have the courage or will to think for himself. The second type of man is a thinker. He dictates his own reality and does think for himself. The third type of man is a student and a teacher. He is one that learns from others and life. He thinks for himself and he also teaches others the lessons he's learned from his experiences. — Therone Shellman

I was seven," she answered. "In my room, under the bed, I heard something like fingernails dragging across the floor. I got up the courage, hung my head over the side, and looked under."

"You're never supposed to do that," Mila gasped. "Seriously, don't you pay attention to the horror movies? — Lani Brown

Rilke wrote in one of my favourite books [Letters to a Young Poet], "Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love." It takes courage to live as our true selves; especially when doing so can be faced with such unkindness. But I believe the more we show of ourselves, the more we make space for positive change in the world. I feel so grateful I get to be a part of a series that is contributing to that change. — Elise Bauman

Those who want to burn books are either afraid of the ideas contained within the covers or they haven't the courage to stand up for the views which they themselves profess to hold. — Tommy Douglas

For my books of nonfiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. I've been a Yankees and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades, so I wrote 'Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man.' It's more the story of his great courage than of his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges, and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig. — David A. Adler

Dream your own dreams,
be your own person and image,
no matter the extremes. — KayeC Jones

It is the modern literature of the educated, not of the uneducated, which is avowedly and aggressively criminal..The vast mass of humanity, with their vast mass of idle books and idle words, have never doubted and never will doubt that courage is splendid, that fidelity is noble, that distressed ladies should be rescued, and vanquished enemies spared. There are a large number of cultivated persons who doubt these maxims of daily life. — G.K. Chesterton

My values are not based on violence. My values are based on courage, which you see time and time again in my books. A warrior isn't somebody like Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. A warrior can be any age. A warrior is a person people look up to. — Brian Jacques

My new favorite title is How Jane Austen Ruined My Life. I don't have the courage to read it, though. I'm afraid to discover she's ruined mine as well. — Katherine Reay

I am sure of this, that by going much alone a man will get more of a noble courage in thought and word than from all the wisdom that is in books. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here and there and not just in books we catch glimpses of a world of once upon a time and they lived happily ever after, of a world where there is a wizard to give courage and a heart, an angel with a white stone that has written on it our true and secret name, and it is so easy to dismiss it all that it is hardly worth bothering to do ... But if the world of the fairy tale and our glimpses of it here and there are only a dream, they are one of the most haunting and powerful dreams that the world has ever dreamed ... — Frederick Buechner

And then you grew up, went to school, and began to 'philosophize,' didn't you? We all go through the same thing. It seems that during adolescence a person's inner life is suddenly weakened, stripped of its natural courage. In his thinking he no longer dares stand face to face with reality or mystery; he begins to see them through the opinions of 'grown-ups,' through books and courses and professors. Still, a voice remains which is not completely muffled and which cries out every so often - every time its gag is loosened by an unexpected jolt in the routine. The voice cries out its great questioning of everything, but we stifle it again right away. — Rene Daumal

purple threaded evening. a torn goddess laying on the roof. milk sky. lavender hued moan against hot asphalt. the thickness of evening presses into your throat. polaroids taped to the ceiling. ivy pouring out of the cracks in the wall. i found my courage buried beneath molding books and forgot to lock the door behind me. the old house never forgets. opened my mouth and a dandelion fell out. reached behind my wisdom teeth and found sopping wet seeds. pulled all of my teeth out just to say i could. he drowned himself in a pill bottle and the orange really brought out his demise. lay me down on a bed of ground spices. there's a song there, i know it. amethyst geode eyes. cracked open. no one saw it coming.
october never loved you.
the moon still doesn't understand that. — Taylor Rhodes

Muslim women, and critics, male and female, of Western models of sex and sexuality, are silenced. The price of speech for a Muslim woman in the West is the disavowal of Islam. Books condemning Islam are picked by publishers and featured on talk shows. Their authors are commended for their courage. Speech in defense of Islam is read as the speech of subjection. Islam oppresses women. Any woman speaking in its favor must be deluded or forced to speak against her will. If she defends the hijab or speaks in defense of polygamy, she cannot be believed. No woman in her right mind could defend these. Any woman who does must be deluded or coerced. The more Muslim women object to Western efforts to "help" them, the more need there is to liberate them. — Anne Norton

I read a lot of travel books before I came here. Fantasised what it would be like. I read Scott's journal. Those last entries as they froze to death in that tent. 'Had we lived, I should have made a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.' I got totally caught up in the romance."
"Scott was a self-aggrandising dick. — Adam Baker

One way to stop worrying and get the courage to begin is to plan and prepare thoroughly in advance. Set clear goals and objectives, then gather information. Read and research books and blogs in your chosen field. Write out detailed plans of action, and then take the first step towards relieving stress. — Brian Tracy

All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for,-real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope. — Max Muller

They don't write books and make movies about people who make peace with the unjust deaths of others. They write them about people who muster their moral courage and fight for the weak and the innocent, even at their own peril. — John Ensor

The shelves are filled with books about improving the process of leadership; discussions of how to hone its art are few. Checklists and processes do not challenge our ability to think, they do not force us to defend our ideas or look new ones in the face. They demand no depth. Defining leadership as an art rather than as a process does not mean that leadership cannot be taught. It merely means that gaining a greater understanding of leadership requires intellectual courage. Just as we develop physical courage by experiencing and functioning under physical fear and moral courage by making the choice of right amidst the pressure to do otherwise, so we develop intellectual courage through the discomfort and ambiguity of experiencing ideas that challenge our depth and perspective. Leaders develop intellectual courage by continuously sharpening the saber through education, and in doing so they
hone within themselves the art of leadership. — Christopher D. Kolenda

The romance genre is the only genre where readers are guaranteed novels that place the heroine at the heart of the story. These are books that celebrate women's heroic virtues and values: courage, honor, determination and a belief in the healing power of love. — Jayne Ann Krentz

Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage. — George W. Bush

So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans. My problems are new, my psychological horizon frighteningly comprehensive, my language bold and clear; there may well be no books written in German which are richer in ideas and more independent than mine. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, 'Look at my beautiful home! Isn't it fine?' And not, 'Look at the home so-and-so has built.' Thus we shouldn't cry, 'Look what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!' But rather, 'Look at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave? — Roman Payne

We rely upon the poets, the philosophers, and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy or sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope; they give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I feel my courage wavering, I rush to them. They give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resiliance to push on. — Helen Hayes