What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

I’m not the sort to back away from a fight. I don’t believe in shrinking from anything. It’s not my speed; I’m a guy who meets adversities head on.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

Believers, look up – take courage. The angels are nearer than you think.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

One man with courage is a majority.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

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

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.

I was drafted during the Korean War.

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

He who is brave is free.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

The Bible says to ‚fear not,‘ but this doesn’t mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

Boldness be my friend.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that’s where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

Anytime we step out boldly to make changes, we take a chance that we might fail. But the only way to get better is to try.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

My mom, she was a very, very soft woman. It was hard for her to yell or even curse. But when it came to fighting for her kids, she found a strength she didn’t always know she had.

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I’m a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself – all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.