60+ Bravery and Courage Quotes to Inspire Strength, Resilience, and Fearless Action
Bravery and courage are two sides of the same strength. Bravery is the bold act of facing fear or danger in the moment, often instinctive and immediate. Courage, however, is a deeper quality—it is the quiet, steadfast resolve to confront challenges, uncertainty, or adversity over time, despite fear. Together, they inspire us to act with purpose, whether in grand gestures or small, consistent steps. True strength lies in having the courage to persevere and the bravery to take the first step.
- “The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.”
- “Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.”
- “It requires more courage to suffer than to die.”
- “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
- “Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”
- “Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.”
- “I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.”
- “Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!”
- “To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.”
- “Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.”
- “Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.”
- “The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.”
- “We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.”
- “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
- “You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.”
- “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
- “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”
- “Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.”
- “Courage is knowing what not to fear.”
- “Courage is a kind of salvation.”
- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
- “In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.”
- “He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.”
- “Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?”
- “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.”
- “Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.”
- “Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.”
- “You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.”
- “It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”
- “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
- “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”
- “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
- “Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.”
- “Because of a great love, one is courageous.”
- “From caring comes courage.”
- “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
- “Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.”
- “The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.”
- “That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.”
- “We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.”
- “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
- “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
- “Courage is grace under pressure.”
- “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”
- “Courage is found in unlikely places.”
- “I wish that the Indians believed me a god, for upon the report of an enemy’s valor oftentimes depends the success of a battle, and false reports have many times done as great things as true courage and resolution.”
- “Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?”
- “Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.”
- “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.”
- “Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.”
- “Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.”
- “A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.”
- “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”
- “The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.”
- “Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”
- “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
- “Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”
- “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
- “I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.”
- “Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”
- “Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.”
- “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
- “Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.”
- “The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.”
- “Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.”