Courage Quotes

Because of their courage and persistence for many years, we can, today, even set the dates when all humanity will join together to celebrate one of the outstanding human victories of our century.

If calamities had the weight of physical objects we should long have been crushed down, or else, we should by now have been hunchbacked, unsteady on our feet, and with faces full of gloom and utter despair. Yet my entire body throbs with life and is full of expectations. Each day brings a fresh stock of experiences and new dreams.

Do not look the other way; do not hesitate. Recognize that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision.

The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom.

I pay tribute to the endless heroism of youth.

I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But we shall not have the courage, the insight, to deal with such matters unless we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual change.

President Johnson rightly praised the courage of the Negro for awakening the conscience of the nation.

So we're going to stand up right here amid horses. We're going to stand up right here, in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas! We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!

If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles.

I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.

Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.

This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom.

When, for decades, you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with a cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon you and says: "Punish me. I do not deserve it. But because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong," you hardly know what to do. You feel defeated and secretly ashamed.

The history of the movement reveals that Negro-white alliances have played a powerfully constructive role, especially in recent years. While Negro initiative, courage and imagination precipitated the Birmingham and Selma confrontations and revealed the harrowing injustice of segregated life, the organized strength of Negroes alone would have been insufficient to move Congress and the administration without the weight of the aroused conscience of white America.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all other.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!