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Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.
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“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.”

Rabindranath Tagore

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Source
Fruit-Gathering
Date
1916
English wording
Rabindranath Tagore — Author and self-translator · from Bengali
Meaning

Meaning of “Let me not pray to be sheltered from…”

The prayer asks not for the removal of danger but for courage within it, shifting the desired response from guaranteed safety toward steadiness under difficulty.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Fruit-Gathering, poem LXXIX, translated by Tagore from Bengali; Project Gutenberg #6522. The line is explicitly prayer language and should not be read as advice to ignore real safety precautions.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

Courage Quotes About Acting Despite FearFearHard TimesHope Quotes About Possibility in Uncertain TimesInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistenceNever Give UpPatiencePerseverance Quotes About Sustained EffortResilience Quotes About Recovery & AdaptationShortStrengthAdversitySpiritual
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In life and death a chainless soul, With courage to endure.
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“In life and death a chainless soul, With courage to endure.”

Emily Brontë · The Old Stoic — Emily Brontë · 1846
Meaning & context

The closing wish joins freedom with endurance, defining courage not as control over events but as keeping the soul unchained through them.

Source details

“The Old Stoic,” Project Gutenberg #1019. This is the poem’s closing aspiration and remains a literary statement rather than medical or psychological guidance.

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Source identified
In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer.
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“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer.”

Jesus · King James Bible — John 16:33 · 1611
Voice: Reported speaker · Jesus
Meaning & context

The line acknowledges hardship directly before calling for courage, so cheer is not based on pretending that trouble does not exist.

Source details

John 16:33 in the King James Version; excerpt from Jesus’s closing words to the disciples.

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I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
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“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

Louisa May Alcott · Little Women · 1869
Voice: Fictional character · Amy March Laurence
Meaning & context

Difficulty becomes part of learning rather than proof that progress is impossible; skill grows while the storm is being navigated.

Source details

Little Women, Chapter 44, “My Lord and Lady,” Project Gutenberg #514. Amy March Laurence says the represented storm/sailing thought while discussing married life with Laurie. The frozen catalog wording expands the source contraction to “I am not afraid of storms,” while the represented #514 text reads “I’m not afraid of storms”; this is a legacy wording variant of the same passage represented by the separate contracted record, not a second independent locus.

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Sweet are the uses of adversity.
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“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

William Shakespeare · As You Like It · c. 1599
Voice: Fictional character · Duke Senior
Meaning & context

Adversity is presented as capable of yielding insight or value even when the experience itself is unwelcome.

Source details

As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1, Duke Senior; 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Jack R. Crawford, printed page 24 / Wikisource scan leaf 36. “Sweet are the uses of adversity” occurs in Duke Senior’s Forest of Arden reflection on exile, winter and the lessons he claims to find outside court life. It remains fictional dramatic speech rather than Shakespeare’s autobiographical advice or a modern psychological claim about hardship.

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