Self Courage Quotes & Sayings

In the long run there is no more liberating, no more exhilarating experience than to determine one's position, state it bravely, and then act boldly. Action brings with it its own courage, its own energy, a growth of self-confidence that can be acquired in no other way — Eleanor Roosevelt

My dad, the man I loved most in the world, a man who refused to compromise himself for anyone, the man who had showed me by example what it was like to be a true artist, was gone. We had become a loving father and son after a rocky thirty-year start. John Fante's gift to me was his ambition, his brilliance, and his pure writer's heart. He had begun life with a drunken, self-hating father, backing out of the hell of poverty and prejudice. Now he was ending it as the best example of courage and humility I had ever known. John Fante was my hero. — Dan Fante

May you find the confidence and courage to climb new heights. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Tyrants are willing to commit to anything ... including mass murder to maintain their domination over every human being alive. They abuse the lives of the people they are entrusted with by the perverse dictates that they, themselves, would never live by. And they feel justified in this by their own self-righteous elite morality, which sets them high above everyone else in their own minds.
You and I, however, are made of quite different stuff. Our words are filled with our true beliefs and backed by the honesty of our actions. We take great pride in not only who we are ... but overcoming the struggle it took to make us this way. We are men and women of character ... principles ... and courage! — R.G. Risch

The sky had taken Denys, but I knew there was life up there, too
a combination of forces suited to me, to how I was made, in powerful ways. That great soaring freedom and unimaginable grace came fully tethered to risk and to fear. Flying demanded more courage and faith than I actually posessed, and it wanted my best, my whole self. I would have to work very hard to be any good at it at all, and be more than a little mad to be great, to give my life over to it. But that's just what I meant to do. — Paula McLain

A willingness to let go of an old self and allow creative thoughts to remake a person into a better version of oneself requires an act of courage. — Kilroy J. Oldster

To be calm and compassionate you need courage and conviction. — Solange Nicole

The cruise was the conduit for what would become my third book. While I was traveling and writing for ctnow, women across the United States and from the Caribbean emailed not to ask about my geographic journey but my existential one. "How do you find the courage to travel on your own?" they wondered. "How do you keep from getting lonely? Don't you feel self-conscious eating out alone?" After the first 30 emails like these I thought, There's a book here. It would be eight years before I published Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road. But the inspiration for publication came during the cruise. — Gina Greenlee

Every noble impulse, every unselfish expression of love; every brave suffering for the right; every surrender of self to something higher than self; every loyalty to an ideal; every unselfish devotion to principle; every helpfulness to humanity; every act of self-control; every fine courage of the soul, undefeated by pretense or policy, but by being, doing, and living of good for the very good's sake - that is spirituality. — David O. McKay

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. — Coco Chanel

If you lose faith, then you begin to fear. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth-the power of love-although I have put it last, is the rarest. — Margot Asquith

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system ... They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man's career with cool, cautious self-possession ... — R.M. Ballantyne

To love yourself, truly love yourself, is to finally discover the essence of personal courage, self-respect, integrity, and self-esteem. These are the qualities of grace that come directly from a soul with stamina. — Caroline Myss

The dilemma for women who love to write may not have so much to do with finding the elusive literary voice, as with being reluctant to use the one that's already lurking inside, just waiting for the chance to speak up. Many of us, especiall,y those from the generations taught to be good, accommodating girls, are afraid of sounding too strong, too loud, too unconventional, or simply too much like the self we're afraid to reveal to the world. Most of us have at least an inkling of what form our writing voice should take, if only we might find the courage to reveal it. — Nava Atlas

what might have looked like courage proved to be a deficit of common sense and an excess of self-importance, too strong a faith in his genius and superiority - not courage at all, but the rash actions of an ordinary narcissist incapable of imagining that he might fail. — Dean Koontz

Courage does not require rappelling across rocky cliffs but rather, day in and day out, overcoming our fears by stepping outside our personal comfort zone, following our intuition, and making ourselves available to the larger plan. It means we transcend our limited self-definitions to be open to new information and stretch beyond the way we've always done things in the past. It means we listen within and sometimes turn left when everyone else seems to be going right. It allows us to risk ridicule to create something new, or to risk rejection when we are being true to our sense of what's right. — Charlene Belitz

To evolve out of this position of psychological immaturity to the courage of self-responsibility and assurance requires a death and a resurrection. That's the basic motif of the universal hero's journey - leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition. — Joseph Campbell

Make the mental physical, and the physical mental, and things will improve. — A.M. Homes

Faith gives self-confidence, self-courage and strength. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Keep trying, your success is certain. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There is one way, then, in which a man can be free from all anxiety about the fate of his soul - if in life he has abandoned bodily pleasures and adornments, as foreign to his purpose and likely to do more harm than good, and has devoted himself to the pleasures of acquiring knowledge, and so by decking his soul not with a borrowed beauty but with its own - with self-control, and goodness, and courage, and liberality, and truth - has fitted himself to await his journey in the next world. — Socrates

God's revelation ... unmasks our illusions about ourselves. It exposes our pride, our individualism, our self-centeredness - in short, our sin. But worship also offers forgiveness, healing, transformation, motivation, and courage to work in the world for God's justice and peace - in short, salvation in its largest sense. — Marva J. Dawn

Like that timber wolf on the mountain he had a kind of animal courage. He went his own way with unconcern for consequences that sometimes stunned people, and stuns me now to hear about it. He did not often swerve to right or to left. I've discovered that. But this courage didn't arise from any idealistic idea of self-sacrifice, only from the intensity of his pursuit, and there was nothing noble about it. — Robert M. Pirsig

Birth is a shadow. Courage, self-sustained, outlords succession's phlegm, and needs no ancestors. — Aaron Hill

The only thing that makes advice great is when you apply it and it works so try, try try. — Rob Liano

Fear ... the right and necessary counterweights to that courage which urges men skyward, and protects them from self-destruction — Heinrich Harrer

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead. — Bette Davis

Unlike boxers-or any professional athlete for that matter-rowers have little motivation to do it longer than necessary. With a modest amount of self-realization, you'll know when you have acquired the nebulous gifts that rowing has to offer, whether it's courage or a strengthened soul or a powerful body. Once you have it, drop back ten yards and punt. Someone new will pick up the ball and run with it. — Brad Alan Lewis

Soloing is the most beautiful way of climbing; no material constrains, just you and the rock, the sun, nature; a kind of school for courage, willpower and self-confidence. — Alain Robert

Hope is the anchor of life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The feeling that "I am enough" does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to grow to. It means that I accept myself, that I am not on trial in my own eyes, that I value and respect myself. This is not an act of indulgence but of courage. — Nathaniel Branden

Confident is the grace of courage. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Getting to know the feel of both emotional energies, fear and courage, will enable you to choose courage more consciously. You don't want fear's energy running rampant in your beautiful self, even if you know its root. Whenever you're afraid, invoke courage to transform fear, the formula for freedom. — Judith Orloff

Accept only the divine self. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Praise Roxane Gay for her big-hearted self-examining intelligence, for her inclusive and forgiving stance, for her courage and determination ... for saying out loud the things we were thinking, for guiding us back to ourselves and returning to us what was ours all along. — Pam Houston

I judge the world by my own lights
and I come by my own hand. — Catherine Madsen

It is what you do about the fear you feel that sets you apart, to be a coward or a courageous person. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength. — Criss Jami

If you possess enough courage to speak out what you are, you will find you are not alone. — Richard Wright

[M]y sensitivity was unfortunately even more monstrous than my grotesqueness. Yes, my grotesqueness; I possess the courage to judge myself without pity, and to call things by their proper names. If only you knew... how I hate my own self, how much I hate my ugliness, yet never so much as I detest my heart. — Iginio Ugo Tarchetti

You have enough courage to face even your greatest fear. — Chris Prentiss

Thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. As you learn to control your thoughts, you can gain courage, conquer fear and have a happy life. — Boyd K. Packer

Do not despise your gift. We are all valuable. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! 'Have courage to use your own reason!'- that is the motto of enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant

May you find the strength to pursue your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Witnessing the Vette's demise, the way Rick felt, there wasn't a king on Earth who he would bow to. No religious figure whose hand he'd kiss. No icon of history he'd worship. No one whose autograph he'd seek. He was becoming a legend, and he was alive to feel it happen. — Rich Hoffman

Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past apprehension of truth; and his alert acceptance of it, from whatever quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to society, his Christianity, his world may at any time be superseded and decease. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage is the belief in self, and the possible ability to prevail in the face of adversity. — Tony Dovale

His life before the triumph that defined his legacy was a reminder of the importance of patience, courage, and the absence of self-pity. — Tom Brokaw

Emotional self-defense ... Those who care so much, maybe too much, know that it takes wisdom and courage to sometimes say, "no" to others. — Steve Maraboli

A conservative party that reshapes its self-presentation according to the suggestions of the liberal media, of course, may very well get what such lack of courage deserves. Having been told by their opponents for years that the key to Republican victory was a softening of the message and more smiles, Republicans have now apparently taken a big dose of this medicine. One might counsel more caution in accepting medicine from one's enemies. — Alan Keyes

I also think you should take care of yourself. You can crack up a little when these things go on for so long. You've got to bring a healthy self in here. That will help him most. He needs to feel your strength. And you need to do what you have to keep it. — Elizabeth Berg

It is properly said that the Devil can "quote Scripture to his purpose." The Bible is full of so many stories of contradictory moral purpose that every generation can find scriptural justification for nearly any action it proposes - from incest, slavery, and mass murder to the most refined love, courage, and self-sacrifice. And this moral multiple personality disorder is hardly restricted to Judaism and Christianity. You can find it deep within Islam, the Hindu tradition, indeed nearly all the world's religions. Perhaps then it is not so much scientists as people who are morally ambiguous. It — Carl Sagan

The highest point of humility consists in not merely acknowledging one's abjection, but in taking pleasure therein, not from any want of breadth or courage, but to give the more glory to God's Divine Majesty, and to esteem one's neighbour more highly than one's self. — Saint Francis De Sales

The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.
We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique. — Richard Rohr

Oh, not the kind of courage that makes a soldier go across no-man's land. That's the kind that he summons up because he has to. This kind is- well, it is part of one's will to live, part of one's instinct for self-preservation. Sometimes, we have to kill a little so we can live, when we don't-when women don't, they cry themselves to sleep and have their mothers wash out their hose every day. — Harper Lee

Freedom is the courage to live your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't think about who they [the Nazis] are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you [Mother Superior to Vianne]. — Kristin Hannah

If I rise up again against the foe, dare I stand alone? — T.A. Cline

Healthy-striving self-talk: "I want this for me. I want to feel better and be healthier. The scale doesn't dictate if I'm loved and accepted. If I believe that I'm worthy of love and respect now, I will invite courage, compassion, and connection into my life. I want to figure this out for me. I can do this. — Brene Brown

It's a dangerous game Cherrycoke's playing here. Often he thinks the sheer volume of information pouring in through his fingers will saturate, burn him out...she seems determined to overwhelm him with her history and its pain, and the edge of it, always fresh from the stone, cutting at his hopes, at all their hopes. He does respect her: he knows that very little of this is female theatricals, really. She has turned her face, more than once, to the Outer Radiance and simply seen nothing there. And so each time has taken a little more of the Zero into herself. It comes down to courage, at worst an amount of self-deluding that's vanishingly small: he has to admire it, even if he can't accept her glassy wastes, her appeals to a day not of wrath but of final indifference... — Thomas Pynchon

Every person's story contains chapters of pain and loss, victory and defeat, love and hate, pride and prejudice, courage and fear, faith and self-distrust, charity and kindness, selfishness and jealously. Every person's story also contains folios of hopefulness and truthfulness, deceit and despair, action and change, passion and compassion, excitement and boredom, birth and creation, mutation and defect, generation and preservation, delusions and illusions, imagination and fantasy, bafflement and puzzlement. What makes a person's selfsame story unique is how he or she organizes the pure and impure forces that comprise them, how they respond to internal and external crisis, if they act in a safeguarding and humble manner, or lead a self-seeking and destructive existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized. — Debbie Ford

I have, and always will, respect people that keep it real no matter what. Most people say "Just keep it real with me," but the fact of the matter is this: Most people can't handle the truth, don't want to accept the truth, deny the truth, or simply aren't willing to face THEIR truth. The next time that you tell somebody to be honest with you, make sure that you mean what you say. Have the courage to pay more attention, listen, and observe. But have greater courage to acknowledge "what is" and face YOUR truth with boldness. The truth is better than a lie any day. Be fearless! — Stephanie Lahart

There had been a time when I owned my life and now I felt like I was coming around to myself again. It's like I've finally discovered bones in myself I never knew I had. I discovered that it takes bravery to be one's self. I now know that the only thing I needed to be afraid of was of not finding my true self and having the courage to be me. — Benilde Little

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. — Virginia Woolf

To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. — Thucydides

Compassion for oneself requires a willingness to step OUTside your own story and see it with loving eyes; the courage to recognize truth and follow new leads; the wish for your own heart to heal and the intention to add a vibrant rhythm to enhance the greater dance around you as you begin to join in. — Laurie Perez

May we have the courage to venture into the unknown. May we be at peace with all we find. May self-love guide the way. — Jason Garner

Life's been one tough little shit, but there's a very obvious reason why she hasn't let me get too comfy, settle too long or sink too deep. She knows she has to kick me in the ass sometimes to get me moving on my journey. — Jennifer DeLucy

Life will either shrink or expand based on your decision to have courage. — Shannon L. Alder

To honor the self is to be willing to think independently, to live by our own mind, and to have the courage of our own perceptions. — Nathaniel Branden

I want to become the favorite song of my own uprising. I want to see the most forgotten, unused part of my soul the one which for years I kept closed out of spite, find the courage to go up to my mind and start writing liberation slogans across its highest fences. — Angelos Michalopoulos

Be firm with your decisions. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Great self-skills are self-confident, self-courage and self-steadiness. — Lailah Gifty Akita

People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion - these are the two things that govern us. And yet - — Oscar Wilde

Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began ... — Abraham Lincoln

It takes courage ... to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives. — Marianne Williamson

The first step to getting what you want is to have the courage to get rid of what you don't. — Zig Ziglar

The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without understanding the science which puts it to use; and his selfishness is no less blind than was formerly his devotedness to others. If society is tranquil, it is not because it is conscious of its strength and its well-being, but because it fears its weakness and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it its life. Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure. The desires, the repinings, the sorrows, and the joys of the present time lead to no visible or permanent result, like the passions of old men, which terminate in impotence. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Don't Have The Power To Stare At The Sun. I Can Only Try Even I Know I'll Fail. At Least I Have The Courage To Do That. I Know My Power And I Know My Shortcomings Which Most of The People Cannot Even Realize About Their Own. I'm Powerful In My Own Little Innocent World ... — Muhammad Imran Hasan

Shields Green was not one to shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his speech was singularly broken; but his courage and self-respect made him quite a dignified character. — Frederick Douglass

You have been disappointed,you have undergone defeat during the depression, you have felt the great heart within you crushed until it bled. Take courage, for these experiences have tempered the spiritual metal of which you are made- they are assets of incomparable value. — Napoleon Hill

Lord, help me to be still before you. Lead me to a greater vision of who you are, and in so doing, may I see myself - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Grant me the courage to follow you, to be faithful to become the unique person you have created me to be. I ask you for the Holy Spirit's power to not copy another person's life or journey. "God, submerge me in the darkness of your love, that the consciousness of my false, everyday self falls away from [me] like a soiled garment. . . . May my 'deep self' fall into your presence. . . . knowing you alone . . . carried away into eternity like a dead leaf in the November wind."24 In Jesus' name, amen. — Peter Scazzero

There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you - of kindness and consideration and respect - not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.
John Steinbeck in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters — John Steinbeck

Sometimes difficulty clarifies things. And sometimes realizing that the road you've chosen is a demanding one gives you the courage to stay on that road. It reveals the nature of our relationship with God. It sounds cute and comforting to say "God is in control," and people who say that may imagine sitting on their daddy's lap behind the wheel of the family car, going "Vroom vroomy vroom!" while Daddy does the steering. In reality, when God is in control, it feels more like one of those movies where some amateur has to step up and land the airplane or steer the ship to safety through a crashing storm, with an expert giving them instructions remotely through a headset. In theory, following the expert's instructions will help us get in safely; but our fear, panic, self-doubt, and lack of skill are not exactly comforting. Yes, God is in control, but we're the ones who are in for a rough ride. — Simcha Fisher

Self-Development Quotes on: Courage, Honesty
Any kind of lasting success is rooted in honesty. — Russell Simmons

When you were in a room with Kurtis James, whether it was one or a hundred other people, Kurtis seemed to be the only one there — Dee Remy

Madonna has no equal at getting attention. She often seems to behave like someone who has been under severe restraint and can now say and do whatever she likes without fear of reprisal. She delights in being challenged, in telling more than she planned, in going further than she had intended. She will answer any question because she is genuinely interested in her own reply. A conversation or an interview then can become an opportunity for self-discovery, or just discovery. It's a hearty mix of self-consciousness and self-confidence. It's a type of courage, this free fall into the perplexing public now. — Carrie Fisher

Courage revealed itself in subtle ways, and often in your most vulnerable moments, when fear and the instinct for self-preservation urged you to flee and forsake others. — Kerry Alan Denney

They say the only way you can truly kill a Celestra is by fire. I would gladly lend myself to the flames to peer down eternally over this sinful disgrace of a planet that houses cowards such as these. — Addison Moore

Be confident, be bold! These are your life greatest strength for success. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage. — Thucydides

And so it is, that if you believe it you can honestly choose what you want to be. But choose carefully, with your intuition, and have the courage to trust your choice! It is vital that we allow our self the privilege of quite space, for it is there we discover the passion that drives us to our heart's desire, to our destiny. — Braam Malherbe

If the demand for self-knowledge is willed by fate and is refused, this negative attitude may end in real death. The demand would not have come to this person had he still been able to strike out on some promising by-path. But he is caught in a blind alley from which only self-knowledge can extricate him. If he refuses this then no other way is left open to him. Usually he is not conscious of his situation, either, and the more unconscious he is the more he is at the mercy of unforeseen dangers: he cannot get out of the way of a car quickly enough, in climbing a mountain he misses his foothold somewhere, out skiing he thinks he can negotiate a tricky slope, and in an illness he suddenly loses the courage to live. The unconscious has a thousand ways of snuffing out a meaningless existence with surprising swiftness. — C. G. Jung

Think, dear Sir, of the world that you carry inside you, and call this thinking whatever you want to: a remembering of your own childhood or a yearning toward a future of your own - only be attentive to what is arising within you, and place that above everything you perceive around you. What is happening on your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it, and not lose too much time or too much courage in clarifying your attitude toward people. — Rainer Maria Rilke

With all your energy and strength, chase your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. — Marcus Garvey

This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregiousof sins ... It is one step away from protestantism. — Stendhal