Courage quotes for UPSC & State PCS

I can't die but once.

To save all we must risk all.

The thing I fear most is fear.

Strength is Life, Weakness is death.

It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.

There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.

He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat.

Liberty I will have, or die in the attempt to gain it.

What people see as fearlessness is really persistence.

One might say: Genius is talent exercised with courage.

Don’t shortchange the future, because of fear in the present.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

Audacity succeeds as often as it fails; in life it has an even chance.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.

Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

No right way is easy in this rough world. We must risk our lives to save them.

People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.

There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness that something else is more important.

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

Things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so.

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

In any case, we do not advance the human cause by refusing to consider ideas that make us frightened.

There is no change without risk, and no progress without sacrifice, and no freedom without solidarity.

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible — not to have run away.

Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree.

You may either win your peace, or buy it:—win it, by resistance to evil;—buy it, by compromise with evil.

One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives.

No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence.

It may be providence's will that the cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.

The man who is right is a majority. We, who have God and conscience on our side, have a majority against the universe.

I think of it all as a test. This is a moral examination that one has to pass... to stand up against such social evils.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.

I do so dearly believe that no half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

Every start upon an untrodden path is a venture which only in unusual circumstances looks sensible and likely to be successful.

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his back up, realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent.

You could attach prices to thoughts. Some cost a lot, some a little. And how does one pay for thoughts? The answer, I think, is: with courage.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.

But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.

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.

That dependable courage, which in spite of the most sudden circumstances, nevertheless allows freedom of mind, of judgment and of decision, is exceedingly rare.

Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

Whatever happens, I cannot be a silent witness to murder or torture. Anyone who is a partner in this is a despicable individual. I am sorry I cannot be moderate about it...

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right?

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot

There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to 'mean' horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.

When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than to remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.

This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.

If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

Only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation, nourished it as an infant, and carried it through its severest tests upon the attainment of its maturity.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

It is the coward and the fool who says, This is my fate – so says the Sanskrit proverb. But it is the strong man who stands up and says, I will make my own fate. It is people who are getting old who talk of fate. Young men generally do not come to astrology.

Life is a difficult game. You can win it only by retaining your birthright to be a person. And to retain this right, you will have to be willing to take the social or external risks involved in ignoring pressures to do things the way others say they should be done.

I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

He sees as well as you do that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions.

They fought because they were paid for it; they were not interested very much in the conquest of Greece. The Athenians on the other hand, fought for their freedom. They preferred to die rather than lose their freedom, and those who are prepared to die for any cause are seldom defeated.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!

He who dares not offend cannot be honest.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

The time is always right to do what's right.

Fear of evil is greater than the evil itself.

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

The best of us would rather be popular than right.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

You try to save a drowning man without prior authorization.

Self Confidence has always been the parent of great actions.

A great people may be killed, but they cannot be intimidated.

It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy — from lack of character.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

In life, there's nothing to be feared, everything is to be understood.

I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.

The way is not made easy for those who would defend the public interest

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

I am not ready to die because it requires infinitely higher courage to live.

Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.

All through life, be sure and put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.

People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don’t dream at all.

It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.

However, he who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards that he gets stepped on.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action.

Anyone who knows of a provable instance of colour discrimination ought always to expose it.

In great dangers, the small hope of overcoming them draws desperate strength from the spirit.

It is blood alone that can pay the price of freedom. Give me blood and I will give you freedom!

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.

The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog.

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.

How many seemingly impossible things have been accomplished by resolute men because they had to do, or die.

I have always been of the opinion that infamy earned by doing what is right is not infamy at all, but glory.

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Neither a wise man or a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

I would … rather lose in a cause that I know some day will triumph than triumph in a cause that I know some day will lose.

Greater in battle than the man who would conquer a thousand-thousand men, is he who would conquer just one — himself. (Verse 103)

I do not ask the clemency of the court. I came into it to get justice, having failed in this, I demand the full rigors of the law.

Throughout history, males have been willing to risk and even sacrifice their lives, just so that people will say, 'He is a real man!

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude.

Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.

The purpose of life...is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

It would be better for me … that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.

You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism.

Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.

Le courage de nos différences. Without becoming irresponsible, to accept what divides us — with humility and with pride. It is by the 'new' that mankind is saved or betrayed.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin — to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.

Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.

No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is; no man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness.

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.

Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world.

I pledge you that we will neither commit nor provoke aggression, that we shall neither flee nor invoke the threat of force, that we shall never negotiate out of fear, we shall never fear to negotiate.

We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.

...what really counts is not the immediate act of courage or of valor, but those who bear the struggle day in and day out — not the sunshine patriots but those who are willing to stand for a long period of time.

Ion is... a parrhesiastes, i.e., the sort... so valuable to democracy or monarchy since he is courageous enough to explain either to the demos or to the king just what the short-comings of their life really are.

Those who continue to fight for a hateful cause will find they are increasingly alone. For we will not succumb to threats, and we will demonstrate that the future belongs to those who build — not those who destroy.

The thinking man must … oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. True manhood is too precious a spiritual good for us to surrender any part of it to thoughtlessness.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated by it as enemies.

We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately — but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes — but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourself. Therefore make your own future.

Nevertheless, the fact that there are dangers in following a given course merely means that we should follow it with a cautious realization of these dangers, and not that we should abandon it, if on the whole it is the right course.

Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death. And the issue is not what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply whether or not 2+2=4.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, the women together ought to be able to turn back and get it right side up again! And now they are asking to do it, the men had better let them.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

If thou think defeat is the end of thee, then go not forth to fight, even though thou be the stronger. For Fate is not purchased by any man nor is Power bound over to her possessors. But defeat is not the end, it is only a gate or a beginning.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige and even his life for the welfare of others.

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or long, victory and honor will be found.

Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor!

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great or rational whether in life or in science. Great achievement is assured, however, of subsequent recognition and grateful acceptance by public opinion, which in due course will make it one of its own prejudices

The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand, shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.

No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it. To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else. Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many. Discipline in war counts more than fury.