Editor’s Note: Acacia Resources, BCE’s publishing division, has unveiled its newest online resource: Courageous Churches, a 13-lesson Sunday School curriculum. As churches and individuals begin to purchase the material, we offer these famous quotes about courage—for reflection and use by students and teachers.
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”—C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), British author
“Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.”—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.), Greek philosopher
“Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.”—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), British author, lexicographer
“Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936), British author
“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”—Billy Graham (1918–), American evangelist
“Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.”—Ruth Gordon (1896–1985), American actress and playwright
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”—Mark Twain (1835–1910), U.S. author
“Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.”—Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987), American playwright and diplomat
“Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life.”—E.M. Forster (1879–1970), British novelist, essayist
“People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person’s habitual misery.”—Graham Greene (1904–1991), British novelist
“When you see what is right, have the courage to do it.”—Chinese Proverb
“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.”—Erica Jong (1942–), U.S. author
“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), American religious and social thinker
“People are capable of doing an awful lot when they have no choice and I had no choice. Courage is when you have choices.”—Terry Anderson, U.S. hostage
“Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.”—Paul Tillich (1886–1965), American philosopher and theologian
Visit Bartleby.com for more famous quotes.
Click here to learn more about Courageous Churches.
