– Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address (1933)
Meaning: Fear can be more dangerous than the problem itself, because it stops people from acting. Roosevelt said it during the Great Depression to give Americans hope.
22 English quotes
Quotes about courage & fear
Quotes about being brave, facing fear and taking risks.
Quotes
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”
– Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1994)
Meaning: Brave people still feel afraid. Courage means doing what is right even though you are scared.
- absence
- – the state of not being there
- triumph over
- – a victory against
– Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living (1960)
Meaning: The way to beat fear is to face it. When you do something you thought was impossible, you become stronger and more confident.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
– Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
Meaning: Being brave doesn't mean you feel no fear. It means you fight your fear and control it.
- mastery
- – complete control of something
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
– William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1599)
Meaning: A coward suffers again and again by imagining every danger. A brave person only meets death when it really comes, so they live more freely.
- Cowards
- – people who are not brave
- valiant
- – brave (literary)
– Helen Keller, Let Us Have Faith (1940)
Meaning: Playing it safe all the time is not really living. Keller, who was deaf and blind, believed life only has meaning when we take risks.
- daring
- – brave and willing to take risks
Meaning: Being honest, kind or fair is easy when it costs nothing. Courage is what lets you stay good when it becomes difficult or dangerous.
- virtues
- – good qualities in a person's character
- consistently
- – all the time, in the same way
– Anaïs Nin
Meaning: The braver you are, the bigger and richer your life becomes. Fear makes your world smaller.
- shrinks
- – becomes smaller
- in proportion to
- – in a way that matches the size of
– Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic speech (1910)
Meaning: The people who deserve respect are those who try and struggle, even if they fail – not the critics who only watch and comment.
- arena
- – a place where people compete or fight in front of a crowd
- marred
- – spoiled or damaged
– Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement address (2005)
Meaning: Deep down you often know what you really want. It takes courage to follow that feeling instead of what others expect.
- intuition
- – a feeling that something is true without a clear reason
– Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (1987)
Meaning: Don't wait until you stop feeling afraid – that may never happen. Accept the fear and act anyway.
– Terence, Phormio (161 BC), in translation
Meaning: People who take bold risks are more likely to be lucky and succeed than people who stay safe.
- Fortune
- – luck
- favours
- – helps or prefers
– Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 104 (c. AD 65), in translation
Meaning: We think fear comes from difficulty, but often it's the other way round: things seem hard because we are afraid to try them.
- dare
- – are brave enough to do something
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
– Often attributed to Marie Curie
Meaning: Fear often comes from not knowing. When we learn more about something, it usually stops being frightening.
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”
– Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part 2 (1869)
Meaning: Hard times don't scare you when you are learning to handle them. Skill and experience replace fear.
– J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
Meaning: Arguing with people you love can be as hard as fighting enemies. Dumbledore says this to praise a boy who tried to stop his friends from breaking the rules.
- stand up to
- – refuse to accept bad behaviour from someone; resist
“You may trod me in the very dirt but still, like dust, I'll rise.”
– Maya Angelou, Still I Rise (1978)
Meaning: However badly people treat you, you will get up again. Like dust, you cannot be kept down.
- trod
- – walk on and press down with your feet (here used as "tread")
– Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)
Meaning: Fear stops you from thinking clearly. In the novel, the hero repeats these words to stay calm in danger.
- mind-killer
- – something that destroys your ability to think
– Amelia Earhart, Courage (poem, c. 1928)
Meaning: You can't have a calm, peaceful life without first being brave. Courage is what peace costs.
- exacts
- – demands and takes something as payment
- granting
- – giving or allowing
– Often attributed to Ernest Hemingway
Meaning: Being brave means staying calm and behaving well when things are hard. Hemingway used the phrase "grace under pressure" to describe having guts.
- grace
- – calm, elegant behaviour
- under pressure
- – in a difficult, stressful situation
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
– Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night (1951)
Meaning: Don't accept death or defeat quietly – fight it with all your strength. Thomas wrote this for his father, who was dying.
- gentle
- – here: quietly, without a fight
- Rage
- – be very angry; fight with strong feeling
– C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
Meaning: A short, kind encouragement to be brave. In the story, the lion Aslan whispers it to a frightened girl in the dark.
- dear heart
- – an old, loving way to address someone