Courage Quotes About Acting Despite Fear

Enchiridion 5 in George Long’s translation; the passage distinguishes events from the opinions that disturb us.

Isaiah 41:10 in the King James Version; opening reassurance of the verse.

Traditional English moral associated with the fable; wording is later than the ancient Greek tradition.

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying XVI, Hastings Crossley translation.

The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, 1831. Prince’s oral account was taken down for publication; the passage explicitly explains why she wanted English readers to know what slavery felt like from an enslaved person’s perspective.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” represented by Project Gutenberg #375. The sentence is narrator commentary immediately before Peyton Farquhar’s execution; it belongs to Civil War fiction and does not endorse the killing.

Citizenship in a Republic; this short clause comes from the “man in the arena” passage.

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying IX, Hastings Crossley translation.

Enchiridion 9; Epictetus uses illness to illustrate the distinction between external limits and the will.

My Larger Education, Chapter I, “Learning from Men and Things”; Project Gutenberg #73923. Washington connects repeated problem-solving with strength of mind and clearer judgment, contrasting developed capacity with an untested life of ease.

Struggles and Triumphs, 1872 author’s edition; this is autobiographical reflection from Barnum’s account of rebuilding after a difficult business period.

The Twilight of the Idols, “Maxims and Missiles,” maxim 10, Anthony M. Ludovici translation, Project Gutenberg #52263. This record uses the first two sentences; Nietzsche immediately follows them with a more provocative remark about pangs of conscience.

A Voice from the South, “Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race,” Project Gutenberg #61741 / Wikisource 1892 text. The sentence belongs to Cooper's Black feminist argument about representation, education and racial uplift; it is not a generic claim that one individual literally represents every Black person.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Chapter XLI, “Free At Last,” Project Gutenberg #11030. Jacobs tells the reader that her story ends with freedom rather than marriage, then explains that she and her children are free while her hope for a home of her own remains unrealized. This is autobiographical testimony from the history of U.S. slavery.

Richard III, Act V, Scene 2: Henry, Earl of Richmond, speaking to his allies immediately before marching toward Richard’s army. The passage follows his hope for peace after battle. Wording and punctuation follow the MIT public-domain play text; Folger’s modern-edition punctuation differs. This is a military-political exhortation from a character, not a guarantee of success.

Speech commonly titled “On Women’s Right to Vote,” delivered after Anthony’s arrest for voting in the 1872 presidential election. The statement is constitutional advocacy from the nineteenth-century U.S. woman-suffrage movement, not current legal advice.

My Larger Education, Chapter I, “Learning from Men and Things”; Project Gutenberg #73923. Washington reflects on how he came to emphasize internal discipline and concentrated effort while explicitly acknowledging externally imposed disadvantage.

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, saying 156, D. Lyman Jr. translation (1856).

My Larger Education, Chapter I, “Learning from Men and Things”; Project Gutenberg #73923. The sentence continues Washington’s argument that confronting difficult practical problems can develop strength and clarity rather than merely consume effort.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Chapter III, “A Controversy,” Project Gutenberg #969. Gilbert Markham argues that a son should learn to meet obstacles rather than have every stone cleared from his path; Helen Graham immediately challenges the gendered educational distinction behind the argument. It is one side of a fictional debate, not Anne Brontë’s unqualified parenting rule.

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying X, Hastings Crossley translation.

The Will to Believe, essay “The Dilemma of Determinism”; Project Gutenberg #26659. This is a philosophical argument about free will, not an empirical proof that metaphysical freedom has been established.

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, saying 586, D. Lyman Jr. translation (1856).

Meditations, Book IV, in George Long’s translation.

1 Samuel 20:17 in the King James Version; Jonathan renews his covenant with David.

Civil Disobedience; represented Wikisource text. This sentence belongs to Thoreau’s abolitionist and antiwar case for noncooperation with an unjust government, not a context-free instruction for ordinary legal disputes.

The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.

Up from Slavery, Chapter II, “Boyhood Days,” Project Gutenberg #2376. Washington reflects on the obstacles facing Black youth after slavery and measures success by difficulty overcome rather than by final social position; the historical racial context is kept explicit.

Men of Invention and Industry, Chapter III, “John Harrison: Inventor of the Marine Chronometer”; Project Gutenberg #725. This is Smiles’s biographical narration, not Harrison speaking in first person.

Meditations, Book IV, section XL, Meric Casaubon translation represented by Project Gutenberg #2680. The promontory image recommends steadiness under repeated disturbance. The frozen catalog wording shortens the represented witness after “yet it”: Gutenberg reads “yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted.” This remains translation-mediated Roman Stoic moral philosophy, not a modern clinical resilience finding.

Notre-Dame de Paris, represented by Project Gutenberg #2610 in an English translation. The narrator makes the comic remark while the penniless Gringoire moves through Paris; the English wording is translation-layer text, not Hugo’s original French phrasing.

Up from Slavery, Chapter II, “Boyhood Days,” Project Gutenberg #2376. Washington reflects on the disadvantages surrounding Black childhood after slavery and says achievement should be measured by the obstacles overcome rather than by final position alone.

The Victorious Attitude; this sentence appears in Marden’s sustained argument that loss of self-faith is more damaging than the loss of possessions or an individual undertaking.

Villette, late in the novel; spoken in the first-person narrative voice of the fictional Lucy Snowe. The religious hope belongs to Lucy’s character and scene, not a direct autobiographical declaration by Charlotte Brontë.

Dhammapada 39, Max Müller translation; its religious vocabulary belongs to the text’s discipline of watchful thought and should not be reduced to a clinical claim about anxiety.

Enchiridion, chapter 35, George Long translation; the following sentence distinguishes right action from fear of wrong criticism.

The Power of Truth, “The Way of the Reformer.” The qualifying language about rights and duties is retained because it prevents the individualist passage from being reduced to purely self-centered advice.

Letter 30 reflects on death, courage, and the completion of a life.

Rasselas, Chapter XVI; spoken by Imlac while comparing European life with the travelers’ expectations of happiness.

1 John 4:18 in the King James Version; this record uses the opening clauses of the verse.