Courage (also called bravery or valor) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in battle. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, even death, or threat of death; while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, or personal loss.
Some of the best courage quotes are listed below.
- “Acts of bravery don’t always take place on battlefields. They can take place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and yes, your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.” – Anna Quindlen
- “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
- “All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.” – John F. Kennedy
- “And only weaklings…who lack courage and the power to feel they’re right when the whole world says they’re wrong, ever lose.” – Zelda Fitzgerald
- “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” – E. F. Schumacher
- “Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that’s what makes you strong.” – Sarah Dessen
- “At least three times every day take a moment and ask yourself what is really important. Have the wisdom and the courage to build your life around your answer.” – Lee Jampolsky
- “Be strong now because things will get better. It might be stormy now but it can’t rain forever.” – Hailee
- “Because no matter what they say, you always have a choice. You just don’t always have the guts to make it.” – Ray N. Kuili
- “Believers, look up – take courage. The angels are nearer than you think.” – Billy Graham
- “Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.” – Omar N. Bradley
- “Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.” – John Quincy Adams
- “Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway.” – Mignon McLaughlin
- “Courage is about learning how to function despite the fear; to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at you to fight or flee – and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do.” – Jim Butcher
- “Courage is being the only one who knows how terrified you are.” – Tom Clancy
- “Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” – George Patton
- “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
- “Courage is looking fear right in the eye and saying, ‘Get the hell out of my way, I’ve got things to do.’” – Unknown
- “Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.” – Arthur Koestler
- “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.” – Amelia Earhart
- “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill
- “Courage originally meant ‘To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.’” – Brené Brown
- “Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of.” – Bethany Hamilton
- “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm
- “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” – Brene Brown
- “Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.” – Miguel Angel Ruiz
- “Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.” – Erica Jong
- “Everyone including YOU suffers when you refuse to BE all & DO all you can.” – Fela Durotoye
- “Failure is not having the courage to try, nothing more and nothing less.” – Robin Sharma
- “Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.” – Charlie Chaplin
- “Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” – Maya Angelou
- “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” – W. Clement Stone
- “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
- “Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.” – Tori Amos
- “I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.” – John Patrick Shanley
- “I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare.” – Maya Angelou
- “I nodded, pretending to be a hundred times more courageous than I felt. But that was the thing about courage. Sometimes you had to fake it to feel it.” – Lisa Tawn Bergren
- “If we never had the courage to take a leap of faith, we’d be cheating God out of a chance to mount us up with wings like eagles and watch us soar.” – Jen Stephens
- “If you could get up the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.” – David Viscott
- “If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.” – Roopleen
- “If you want to do something courageous, try Love.” – Sean King
- “If you’re only looking out for yourself, you will always be scared. But if there are other factors, other concerns and considerations driving you, you will always find the strength and courage to overcome the danger and the fear.” – J.H. Myn
- “It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for that long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” – Dumbledore, Harry Potter
- “It takes a lot of courage to face up to things you can’t do because we feed ourselves so much denial.” – Zoe Saldana
- “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.” – Alan Cohen
- “It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” – Erma Bombeck
- “It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – E. E. Cummings
- “It takes courage… to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.” – Marianne Williamson
- “It wasn’t until I found the courage to look in the mirror and say, ‘I Love You’ with conviction that I felt truly amazing! If no one loves you, love yourself!” – R.S. Lewis
- “It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.” – Xiaolu Guo
- “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security 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 exposure.” – Hellen Keller
- “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” – Louise Erdrich
- “Love and peace of mind do protect us. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us. They teach us to survive… to live now… to have the courage to confront each day.” – Bernie Siegel
- “Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous; there’s really nothing to lose. There’s no wrong you can’t make right again, so be kinder to yourself…have fun, take chances. There are no bounds.” – Jewel
- “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
- “My message, especially to young people, is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
- “Never be discouraged. If I were sunk in the lowest pits of Nova Scotia, with the Rocky Mountains piled on me, I would hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I would come out on top.” – Joseph Smith, Jr.
- “Nothing is always there. Not courage, not joy, not hate or hope or anything else. We find courage, lose it, sometimes misplace it for years, and sometimes live in its grace for a while.” – Jonathan Mayberry
- “One of the most powerful lessons in life is to recognize that no one can give you power, and many people don’t want you to have it. You have to find the courage to seize it, own it and hold on!” – Shannon L. Alder
- “Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it’s what you believe, and the heck with everybody.” – Justin Cronin
- “Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” – Katherine Mansfield
- “Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.” – Emma Donoghue
- “She was beginning to realize people could survive most things. Not because they were brave or strong, but because there wasn’t any choice.” – Candice Proctor
- “Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” – Ann Landers
- “Some people won’t be happy until they’ve pushed you to the ground. What you have to do is have the courage to stand your ground and not give them the time of day. Hold on to your power and never give it away.” – Donna Schoenrock
- “Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” – Walt Disney
- “Sometimes, making the wrong choice is better than making no choice. You have the courage to go forward; that is rare. A person who stands at the fork, unable to pick, will never get anywhere.” – Terry Goodkind
- “Sooner or later, even the fastest runners have to stand and fight.” – Stephen King
- “Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” – John Wooden
- “Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” – George A. Sheehan
- “Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” – Mary Tyler Moore
- “That’s what courage is. Taking your disappointments and your failures, your guilt and your shame, all the wounds received and inflicted, and sinking them in the past. Starting again. Damning yesterday and facing tomorrow with your head held high. Times change. It’s those that see it coming, and plan for it, and change themselves to suit, that prosper.” – Joe Abercrombie
- “The brave may not live forever, but the cautious don’t live at all.” – Ashley L.
- “The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.” – Paul Tillich
- “The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.” – Brene Brown
- “The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
- “The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.” – John Lancaster Spaulding
- “The only true measure of courage is perseverance under pressure.” – K.H. LeMoyne
- “The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” – Jim Hightower
- “The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage.” – Thucydides
- “There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery I must have now.” – Veronica Roth
- “There are times of hardship when people forget the courage they need to keep fighting, and survive. But I think as long as we have something to believe in – to keep close in our hearts – courage will never truly leave us. We only have to reach deep in our heart to find it.” – Sakura
- “There’s only one requirement of any of us, and that is to be courageous. Because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior. And, I believe – because I’ve done a little of this myself – pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing.” – David Letterman
- “They looked at each other. They weren’t thinking anymore. The time for that had come and gone. Smashed smiles lay ahead of them. But that would be later.” – Arundhati Roy
- “To boast wonder takes great courage. Being left speechless with joy is not for the weak. We forget to be surprised by everyday miracles, like toast springing up, the mesmerizing blue in the sky, or even simple friendships. To touch and remember this delicate sense of wonder, we travel. We deliberately let ourselves become tourists to welcome in this unique delight.” – Edmond Manning
- “To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.” – Henri Matisse
- “Too many people out there tell us what we can and cannot do but…they don’t know who we are, what’s put in us.” – Alex Rogers
- “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” – Brené Brown
- “We learn to appreciate what we achieve, no matter how small the achievement, because we do it ourselves.” – Midge Rylander
- “We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.” – Haile Selassie
- “We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.” – Maxwell Maltz
- “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change. At such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” – Paulo Coelho
- “Wisdom equals knowledge plus courage. You have to not only know what to do and when to do it, but you have to also be brave enough to follow through.” – Jarod Kintz
- “You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls. People who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear.” – Lauren Oliver
- “You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That, any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody.” – U.G. Krishnamurti
- “You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it.’” – Maya Angelou
- “You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.” – Epicurus
- “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.’” – Eleanor Roosevelt