Bold And Courageous Quotes

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Freedom lies in being bold.
Robert Frost
If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
I have found my star. She is beauty and grace. Elegance and goodness. My laughter in winter. She is courageous and strong. Bold and tempting. Unlike any other in all the universe, and I cannot touch her. I dare not even try." [Zarek]
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter, #3))
What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls (One Day)
Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Marveling at his own boldness, he said softly, "I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me.
Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1))
Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
David Nicholls (One Day)
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.
Maya Angelou
Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls (One Day)
Everyone pretends to be 'free thinkers', but few individuals pass the line into expressive territories that may be detrimental to their own social well-being.
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.
Herodotus (The Histories)
A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably
William Penn
If ever you feel like an animal among men, be a lion.
Criss Jami (Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality)
I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.
Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)
Love, like Fortune, favours the bold.
E.A. Bucchianeri (Brushstrokes of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #1))
Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.
Robert McKee
I had always imagined Rosa Parks as a stately woman with a bold temperament, someone who could easily stand up to a busload of glowering passengers. But when she died in 2005 at the age of ninety-two, the flood of obituaries recalled her as soft-spoken, sweet, and small in stature. They said she was "timid and shy" but had "the courage of a lion." They were full of phrases like "radical humility" and "quiet fortitude.
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
Dreams are reality that has not become true. However, in the hearts of some people, they have already come true. People whose dreams are already achieved in their hearts, and who can see that as they boldly throw themselves into it, have true courage.
Ilchi Lee (The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart)
Hope drowned in shadows emerges fiercely splendid–– boldly angelic.
Aberjhani (The River of Winged Dreams)
The problem isn’t that I think so highly of myself. It is just that you think so little of yourself. Live life BIG, BOLD and OUT LOUD!
Shannon L. Alder
Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that's when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that's celebration.
Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)
Nothing is as irritating to a shy man as a confident girl.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You ruin your life by desensitizing yourself. We are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to us. Caring is not synonymous with crazy. Expressing to someone how special they are to you will make you vulnerable. There is no denying that. However, that is nothing to be ashamed of. There is something breathtakingly beautiful in the moments of smaller magic that occur when you strip down and are honest with those who are important to you. Let that girl know that she inspires you. Tell your mother you love her in front of your friends. Express, express, express. Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how you love. There is courage in that.
Bianca Sparacino
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, 
 when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, 
 when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore. 
 Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life, 
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, 
and in our efforts to build a new earth, 
 we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim. 
 Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, 
where storms will show your mastery, 
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. 
We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes, 
and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. 
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ.
Francis Drake
​Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is badly out of balance, in favor of men.
Isabel Allende (Inés of My Soul)
Boldness be my friend.
William Shakespeare
Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.
Herbert Spencer
People have boldness to criticize but not to sensitize.
Amit Kalantri
Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that's creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator. What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances. An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally. That's why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That's why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam. Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He's an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn't care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it's important, not because he expects you to pay him for it. Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn't matter. The intent does. Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.
Seth Godin (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?)
Accountable Authentic Collaborative Courageous Passionate Lifelong learner Welcomes feedback Biased toward action Solution oriented Change agent
Susan Scott (Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst "Best" Practices of Business Today)
I have found my star. She is beauty and grace. Elegance and goodness. My laughter in winter. She is courageous and strong. Bold and tempting. Unlike any other in all the universe, and I cannot touch her. I dare not even try. Astrid or Aphrodite, she is my Circe. Only instead of changing a man into an animal she has made the animal human. I am such a fucking idiot, wanting a star I can’t have. But then, all stars are beyond human reach and I’m not even human. (Zarek)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter, #3))
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear
Dalai Lama XIV (The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World)
You must dare, and dare again, and then dare a little bit more, and go on daring.
Justin Cotillard
I used to be afraid of the dark until I learned that I am light and the dark is afraid of me.
D.R. Silva
The true meaning of courage is to be afraid, and then, with your knees knocking and your heart racing, to step out anyway—even when that step makes sense to nobody but you. I know that’s not easy. But making a bold move is the only way to truly advance toward the grandest vision the universe has for you.
Oprah Winfrey
Yet you told him you loved him?" "Yes, I did." Bridgid was clearly impressed. "You're more courageous than I am. The fear of being rejected pains me to even think about, yet you boldly told Brodick how you felt, even though he hadn't spoken his feelings." "Actually, he told me I loved him.
Julie Garwood (Ransom (Highlands' Lairds, #2))
So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்ப தில்லையே இச்சகத்து ளொரெலாம் எதிர்த்து நின்ற போதிலும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே துச்சமாக எண்ணி நம்மைத் தூறு செய்த போதினும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே பிச்சை வாங்கி உண்ணும் வாழ்க்கை பெற்று விட்ட போதிலும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்ப தில்லையே இச்சை கொண்ட பொருளெலாம் இழந்த விட்ட போதிலும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே. கச்சணிந்த கொங்கை மாதர் கண்கள் வீசு போதினும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே. நச்சை வாயி லேகொணர்ந்து நண்ப ரூட்டு போதினும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே. பச்சையூ னியைந்த வேற் படைகள் வந்த போதிலும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே. உச்சிமீது வானிடிந்து வீழுகின்ற போதினும், அச்சமில்லை அச்சமில்லை அச்சமென்பதில்லையே.
Subramaniya Bharathiyar (mahakavi barathiyar kavithaikal)
No matter what, I would never let the people who wanted me to break see how much damage they had inflicted.
Rachel L. Schade (Silent Kingdom (Silent Kingdom, #1))
It bothers them that instead of taking on the role of abandoned lover, I have become a happy wife. They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail...Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us.
Isabel Allende (Inés of My Soul)
You have already lost if you are always fearful of losing everything.
Kamand Kojouri
...we have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever we did, we did at the time in the best of faith. Of course, we took some bold steps and often did things with much single-mindedness; but this is surely preferable to never putting one's convictions to the test, for lack of will or courage.
Kazuo Ishiguro (An Artist of the Floating World)
The enemy fights the hardest when you are closest to your breakthrough. Know that your best days are ahead and no weapon formed will prosper.
Germany Kent
Be bold, take courage... and be strong of soul.
Ovid
You are braver than you want to believe. You like to pretend you're not bold because it's an excuse to not stretch yourself.
Lily Chu (The Stand-In)
Live each day as if it's our last', that was the conventional advice, but really who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and you relectric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls
The secret of happiness is freedom but to be totally free you need to earn: courage, persistence and boldness.
Santosh Kalwar
Sin is followed by shame. Repentance is followed by boldness.
John Chrysostom
And now after everything: I know this: There is a reason I am here. And that reason is bigger than me. So I will carry on with great faith beyond what I can see. in pursuit of bold courage, on the adventure of the journey.
Morgan Harper Nichols
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stars do not hide from darkness. Roses do not hide from thorns. Diamonds do not hide from pressure.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Peace made him bold; his life was in God's hands, and there it would always stay. 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?
C.R. Hedgcock (Prisoner of the Pyrenees (Baker Family Adventures #5))
Courage is like magic, courage vanishes crisis.
Amit Kalantri
The art of love is like your painting, it requires technique, patience, and above all, practice by the couple. It requires boldness, the courage to go beyond what people conventionally call "making love.
Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
The young must grow old Whilst old ones grow older. And cowards will shrink As the bold grow bolder. Courage may blossom in quiet hearts, For who can tell where bravery starts? Truth is a song, oft lying unsung, Some mother bird protecting her young. Those who lay down their lives for friends, The echo rolls onward, it seldom ends. Who never turned and ran, but stayed? This is a warrior, born, not made. Living in peace, aye many a season, Calm in life and sound in reason, Till evil arrives, a wicked horde Driving the warrior to pick up his sword The challenger rings then, straight and fair, Justice is with us, beware, beware.
Brian Jacques
The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a different. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Carona electric typewriter and work hard at ... something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. East sensibly. Stuff like that.
David Nicholls (One Day)
fortes fortuna adiuvat," Marcello had said to his men. Fortune favors the brave, the bold.
Lisa Tawn Bergren (Waterfall (River of Time, #1))
We do God more honor by believing what He has said about Himself and having the courage to come boldly to the throne of grace than by hiding in self-conscious humility among the trees of the garden.
A.W. Tozer (The Knowledge of the Holy)
Theory must also take into account the human element; it must accord a place to courage, to boldness, even to rashness.
Carl von Clausewitz (On War - Volume 1)
Strong enough to make holes in the rock are tiny drops of water that persist to fall. Persistence is the attitude that breaks down mountains one rock at a time!
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Watchwords)
Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at … something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible.
David Nicholls
Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how, you love. There is courage in that.
Bianca Sparacino (Seeds Planted in Concrete)
Be firm. Be bold.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
Stay strong; disappointments will not stay for that long. Wipe away your tears; be ready to receive cheers from people all over the world, beginning from you!
Israelmore Ayivor (Daily Drive 365)
The death rate for people who play it safe and for those who live boldly is the same.
Patti Digh (Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally)
Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell.
Alfred Tennyson (The Charge of the Light Brigade)
Everyone appears to be courageous until bad weathers arrive, and then we know the true leaders.
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
Fear can only be mastered outside of your comfort zone.
Matshona Dhliwayo
I tried and they laughed, but I laughed harder because I knew none of them had the nerve to even try.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
Boldness isn't second nature to everyone, it is intentionality
Janna Cachola (Lead by choice, not by checks)
You count the days and watch the years go by. You tell yourself, and you believe it, that you'd rather just die. You'd rather stare death boldly in the face and say you're ready because whatever is waiting on the other side has to be better than growing old in a six-by-ten cage with no one to talk to. You consider yourself half-dead at best. Please take the other half. You've watched dozens leave and not return, and you accept the fact that one day they'll come for you. You're nothing but a rat in their lab, a disposable body to be used as proof that their experiment is working. An eye for an eye, each killing must be avenged. You kill enough and you're convinced that killing is good. You count the days, and then there are none left. You ask yourself on your last morning if you are really ready. You search for courage, but the bravery is fading. When it's over, no one really wants to die.
John Grisham (The Confession)
If you walk and talk with God, you will never miss the direction to your divine future. Be bold and offer your heart to be led by God.
Israelmore Ayivor (Dream big!: See your bigger picture!)
The will to dream, the courage to act and the hope to win are the stuffs that make life meaningful! Create the life you wish to live and live it fully!
Israelmore Ayivor (The Great Hand Book of Quotes)
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin, and then the work will be completed.
Jean Anouilh
Always be bold in everything you do, because boldness has genius, power and magic in it which makes impossibility possible
Adedayo kingjerry
Nothing is sweeter than being unapologetically you. Don't live your life just to impress others. Reveal your truth, Express your love, Live your dreams.
Amaka Imani Nkosazana (Heart Crush)
Two kinds of people have many friends, one with bank balance and other with boldness.
Amit Kalantri
Our roots run deep and are strong to the core. I am proud to see women taking a stand. Many times, we have been fallen warriors; there have been plenty of times we have been wounded warriors, but we are still standing. We are standing up for our rights. We are standing up for a cause. We are standing up for movements that empower us to be heard, respected and appreciated! We are bold! We are courageous! We are thankful! We are grateful! We are blessed!
Charlena E. Jackson (A Woman's Love Is Never Good Enough)
Because of the lingering discrimination, many women still lack confidence. They live in fear of stepping beyond what they feel is acceptable 'female' behavior. I can remember feeling that I wasn't 'normal' because I was aggressive, had dreams and goals, and wanted do do great things...I am glad now that I found courage to do something radical and chase my dreams.
Joyce Meyer (The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear)
Guess what? “Someday” almost never comes around. It gets lost somewhere between the shouda, woulda, couldas of your life. Let go of whatever is holding you back and dare to live – boldly, bravely, and courageously - now. Remember, none of these elements mean you have to be fearless. It’s absolutely okay to be afraid! Acknowledge that part of yourself and then push beyond that fear, whatever it may be. I’m not brave. . . . I’m just taking every opportunity to LIVE.
Kendra Thomas
We are limited by knowledge, not by courage.
Amit Kalantri
Today is your day to paint life in bold colors; set today’s rhythm with your heart-drum; walk today’s march with courage; create today as your celebration of life.
Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Keep being bold on the page, and in life, and people cannot ignore you forever.
Don Roff
When we choose to stay down, we are in reality confusing wisdom with cowardice. When we choose to stand back up, we are using wisdom to overcome cowardice.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
There is one thing you must always remember about yourself; always be yourself, with courage and humility, no matter what!
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
A lion will never be afraid of sheep, no matter how many outnumber it.
Matshona Dhliwayo
But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that's when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that's celebration.
Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)
God, help me. Help me to be wise and full of courage and sound judgment. Harden my heart to the sights that I must see so soon again, grant me only the power to think clearly, boldly, resolutely, no matter how unnerving the peril. Let me not fail them.
Anton Myrer (Once an Eagle)
I've been many things - bold, rash maybe, and lucky - but I don't think I've ever been really brave. Doing what you want, even if it's difficult or painful, that isn't brave. Doing what you have to do - however much it hurts, however much you hate it - that's courage.
Meg Clothier (The Girl King)
Black Girls… Don’t be afraid to use your voice. Your thoughts, opinions, and ideas are just as important as anybody else’s. When you speak, speak with boldness and purpose. Have courage, be confident, and always be true to yourself! Live your life fearlessly! Your voice has GREAT power; don’t be afraid to utilize it when needed. You’re NOT an angry Black woman; you’re a woman who has something important to say. Your voice matters and so do YOU.
Stephanie Lahart
Be calm; yet assertive. Be meek; yet courageous. Be gentle; yet bold. Be kind; yet strong.
Charles F Glassman
Be bold. Be brave. Don't thank your lucky stars. The stars can't hear you.
Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets)
You feed your fears to grow muscles against you when you run away from what frightens you. Little do you know that it’s frightened when you face it boldly!
Israelmore Ayivor (Daily Drive 365)
be bold to face the battle, if you win then you are lucky and if you loose then you will be wise....
Adedayo kinjerry
What differentiates victors and victims are visions and vigor. Victims won't get the vim to step out of their situations.
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder)
The brave with all of their weaknesses are better than the cowardly with all of their strengths.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Life is an adventure, you only win if you are bold and courageous.
Debasish Mridha
Simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls (One Day)
Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at … something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever...
David Nicholls (One Day)
Your persistent actions are the bridge between mind and matter, between the inner and the outer. Do what you’ve been called to do. Do it with grit, do it with courage, do it with boldness and faith, and do it every day for the rest of your life.
Dragos Bratasanu (The Pursuit of Dreams: Claim Your Power, Follow Your Heart, and Fulfill Your Destiny)
The opposite of nice is knowing who you are, what you believe in, and what you value. It’s you being powerful and going after what you want because you are no longer held back by the fear of what others will think of you. It’s you being fierce, determined, and courageous. It’s you being your best self.
Aziz Gazipura (Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself)
In the long run there is no more liberating, no more exhilarating experience than to determine one’s position, state it bravely, and then act boldly. Action brings with it its own courage, its own energy, a growth of self-confidence that can be acquired in no other way
Eleanor Roosevelt
Healing generational trauma takes courage and strength. It’s common for dysfunctional families to deny their abuse. They silence victims and dump toxic shame onto them. Complicit families keep abuse alive from generation to generation, until one brave survivor boldly ends the cycle of abuse.
Dana Arcuri (Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma)
Fear is involuntary, courage is voluntary.
Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
Professional men run the business started by the courageous men.
Amit Kalantri
Be bold, don't be boring.
Amit Kalantri
Courage has the hands to help you fight your fears.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Be bold, speak from your heart.
Nikki Rowe
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is action in the presence of fear. Bold people do what they know they should do—not what they feel like doing.
Joyce Meyer (The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear)
The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you.
David Nicholls (One Day)
Your plans and goals don’t scare the devil in anyway. Your courage to pursue your plans and goals always keeps him on the run. Be bold to make it happen!
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Watchwords)
Onward boldly, pursue your passion.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
A brave wolf is better than a cowardly lion.
Matshona Dhliwayo
With all boldness, brace the eternity of your existence.
Lailah Gifty Akita
Hope is a crazy thing, a courageous thing. Faith is a bold, irrational choice.
Katie Davis Majors (Daring to Hope: Finding God's Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful)
Refuse To Allow Limitations Stop You!
Jaachynma N.E. Agu (Woman: You've Got ALL IT TAKES!)
An empowered woman believes she can do anything because her own strength, courage, boldness, and drive are enough. An in-powered woman believes she can do anything because God is enough.
Candace Cameron Bure (Kind Is the New Classy: The Power of Living Graciously)
Take bold decisions. Don’t let doubts fumble decisions in your mind and make you confused over them. Pursue what you are convinced to do; else you set yourself up where you do not belong.
Israelmore Ayivor (Shaping the dream)
Why didn't you come sooner? I offered them no excuses that day, but I did know that there were reasons. Reasons that, when we hear God's call, when we feel that gentle (or not so gentle) urging of God's Spirit for us to make a bold step, take a risk, serve others, save a life, commit - we so often hold back. It's because we don't feel empowered. We don't feel qualified. We think we lack the courage, the strength, the wisdom, the money, the experience, the education, the organization, the backing. We feel like Moses... Not me, God. I'm afraid. Weak. Poor. Stupid. Unqualified. Daunted.... It has never been my desire to be daunted, to be afraid, to be unable to respond to God's call.
Christine Caine (Undaunted: Daring to do what God calls you to do)
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it –oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly –very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! –would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously –oh, so cautiously –cautiously (for the hinges creaked) –I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights –every night just at midnight –but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Edgar Allan Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings)
What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
David Nicholls (One Day)
Gómez had suggested I steal a fish to achieve more courage and purpose. I regarded this task as an anthropological experiment, though it crossed a border into something approaching magic, or perhaps magical thinking. When I googled how to gut a fish, there were over 9 million results.
Deborah Levy (Hot Milk)
don’t underestimate the risk of inaction. Staying the course instead of making bold moves feels safe, but consider what you stand to lose: the life you could have lived if you had mustered the courage to be bolder.
Bill Perkins (Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life)
What you call your lies are fiction and myths. The art of creating a disguise can be as beautiful as the creation of a painting… I created a woman for my artist life, bold, gay, courageous, generous, fearless; and another to please my father, a clear-sighted woman with a love of beauty, harmony, and self-discipline, critical and selective; and still another who lives in chaos, embraces the weak and the stumbling and the confused.
Anaïs Nin (The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
Take courage and confess your sin, says Luther, do not try to run away from it, but believe more boldly still. You are a sinner, so be a sinner, and don't try to become what you are not. Yes, and become a sinner again and again every day, and be bold about it. But to whom can such words be addressed, except to those who from the bottom of their hearts make a daily renunciation of sin and of every barrier which hinders them from following Christ, but who nevertheless are troubled by their daily faithlessness and sin? Who can hear these words without endangering his faith but he who hears their consolation as a renewed summons to follow Christ?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
My dream is more than just a place to go when I'm feeling left out. It's a place where I can find strength and courage to face the real world. Where I can be bold and take risks, knowing it's just a dream and nothing can hurt me.
Rolf van der Wind
But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you'll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in the world that proveide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
perhaps that’s what it’s for – self-confidence and courage and energy and peace – perhaps it’s to be used in the world. Perhaps there’s only one thing to do with it: spend it. I’m always super-conscious of how whenever I go out into the world, whenever I get involved in a relationship, my idea of who I think I am utterly collides with the reality of who I actually am. And I continue to go out even though who I am always comes up short. I always prove myself to be less generous, less charming, less considerate, not as bold or energetic or intelligent or courageous as I imagined in my solitude. And I’m always being insulted, or snubbed, or disappointed. And I’m never in my pyjamas. And yet, in some way, maybe this is better. Each of us in this room could suffer the pangs of withdrawal and gain the serenity of the non-smoker. We could be demi-gods in our little castles, all alone, but perhaps, at heart, none of us here wants that. Maybe the only cure for self-confidence and courage is humility. Maybe we go out in order to fall short... because we want to learn how to be good at being people... and moreover, because we want to be people.
Sheila Heti
Your courage will be tested during the adversity as well as during the change.
Amit Kalantri
Have the courage; have the boldness; believe in yourself; you will be a success.
Debasish Mridha
Face your monster boldly, the whole world will cheer you on. Run from your monster fearfully, Heaven will cry over your pieces.
Jessiqua Wittman (A Memoir of Mercy (Memoirs of Life, #2))
When dark situations arise, it is opportunity for you to reveal the leader in you. Rise and deal with them.
Israelmore Ayivor
First, fear will mock you, then fear will taunt you, then fear will oppose you, and if you ignore it, only then will it flee from you.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Chance favours the bold.
Jessica Shirvington (Disruption (Disruption, #1))
Be the action and bring the change. Leave the rest to the law of causality. Be bold enough to cause something to happen and it will happen.
Abhijit Naskar (Lord is My Sheep: Gospel of Human)
Don't hide in the dark to whisper the truth undertone secretly. It's a good way to market your timidity. Be bold.
Israelmore Ayivor (Let's go to the Next Level)
It is fair to assume that the world is afraid of you
Vineet Raj Kapoor
The strength we find within ourselves gives us endurance and perseverance power.
Ellen J. Barrier (How to Trust God When All Other Resources Have Failed)
Boldness is a mask of fear, however so great
Susan Patron (Behind the Masks: The Diary of Angeline Reddy, Bodie, California, 1880 (Dear America))
If you can be heartless as the first man who visited the space, then there will be nothing impossibe for you to achieve.
Michael Bassey Johnson
Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to chose the wisest thing and once you’ve chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it.
Maya Angelou
Live boldly now. Later may not be an option.
Andrena Sawyer
I am not without fear, but courage is taking action despite the fear. Knowing what you want, what you are meant to do, and proceeding despite any knots in your stomach or rocks stuck in your throat. It is walking boldly into the unknown with your chin held high... even if it quivers.
Rachel Harris (A Tale of Two Centuries (My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century, #2))
[The wives of powerful noblemen] must be highly knowledgeable about government, and wise – in fact, far wiser than most other such women in power. The knowledge of a baroness must be so comprehensive that she can understand everything. Of her a philosopher might have said: "No one is wise who does not know some part of everything." Moreover, she must have the courage of a man. This means that she should not be brought up overmuch among women nor should she be indulged in extensive and feminine pampering. Why do I say that? If barons wish to be honoured as they deserve, they spend very little time in their manors and on their own lands. Going to war, attending their prince's court, and traveling are the three primary duties of such a lord. So the lady, his companion, must represent him at home during his absences. Although her husband is served by bailiffs, provosts, rent collectors, and land governors, she must govern them all. To do this according to her right she must conduct herself with such wisdom that she will be both feared and loved. As we have said before, the best possible fear comes from love. When wronged, her men must be able to turn to her for refuge. She must be so skilled and flexible that in each case she can respond suitably. Therefore, she must be knowledgeable in the mores of her locality and instructed in its usages, rights, and customs. She must be a good speaker, proud when pride is needed; circumspect with the scornful, surly, or rebellious; and charitably gentle and humble toward her good, obedient subjects. With the counsellors of her lord and with the advice of elder wise men, she ought to work directly with her people. No one should ever be able to say of her that she acts merely to have her own way. Again, she should have a man's heart. She must know the laws of arms and all things pertaining to warfare, ever prepared to command her men if there is need of it. She has to know both assault and defence tactics to insure that her fortresses are well defended, if she has any expectation of attack or believes she must initiate military action. Testing her men, she will discover their qualities of courage and determination before overly trusting them. She must know the number and strength of her men to gauge accurately her resources, so that she never will have to trust vain or feeble promises. Calculating what force she is capable of providing before her lord arrives with reinforcements, she also must know the financial resources she could call upon to sustain military action. She should avoid oppressing her men, since this is the surest way to incur their hatred. She can best cultivate their loyalty by speaking boldly and consistently to them, according to her council, not giving one reason today and another tomorrow. Speaking words of good courage to her men-at-arms as well as to her other retainers, she will urge them to loyalty and their best efforts.
Christine de Pizan (The Treasure of the City of Ladies)
In a world of tribulation--and there will always be plenty of it--let's remember our faith. Let's recall the other promises and prophecies that have been given, all the reassuring ones, and let's live life more fully, with more boldness and courage than at any other time in our history.
Jeffrey R. Holland (Created for Greater Things)
There is something magical and transformational about saying “yes” to God. When you take His hand, step out of that boat (your ordinary, comfortable life), and be brave. Instead of spending your lifetime living in fear and playing it safe, you boldly walk in obedience. God makes you brave.
Dana Arcuri (Reinventing You: Simple Steps to Transform Your Body, Mind, & Spirit)
Action is commonplace, right action is not. As a discipline, it’s not any kind of action that will do, but directed action. Everything must be done in the service of the whole. Step by step, action by action, we’ll dismantle the obstacles in front of us. With persistence and flexibility, we’ll act in the best interest of our goals. Action requires courage, not brashness—creative application and not brute force. Our movements and decisions define us: We must be sure to act with deliberation, boldness, and persistence. Those are the attributes of right and effective action. Nothing else—not thinking or evasion or aid from others. Action is the solution and the cure to our predicaments.
Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph)
Read History: thus learn how small a space You may inhabit, nor inhabit long In crowding Cosmos -- in that confined place Work boldly; build your flimsy barriers strong; Turn round and round, make warm your nest; among The other hunting beasts, keep heart and face, -- Not to betray the doomed and splendid race You are so proud of, to which you belong. For trouble comes to all of us: the rat Has courage, in adversity, to fight; But what a shining animal is man, Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that, For worse than that must follow -- yet can write Music; can laugh; play tennis; even plan.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (Mine the Harvest)
That stereotype about transsexuals being all wild and criminal and bold and outside the norm and, like, engendering in the townsfolk the courage to break free from the smothering constraints of conformity? That stereotype is about drag queens. Maria is transsexual and she is so meek she might disappear.
Imogen Binnie (Nevada: A Novel)
Live courageously bold! Live in such a manner that at the end of this day, at the end of this year, at the end of this precious life, you can hold your head up high, smile, and be proud of a life well lived.
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.” ―One Day
David Nicholls
Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
David Nicholls (One Day)
In every job I’ve taken and every city in which I’ve lived, I have known that it’s time to move on when I’ve grown as much as I can. Sometimes moving on terrified me. But always it taught me that the true meaning of courage is to be afraid, and then, with your knees knocking, to step out anyway. Making a bold move is the only way to advance toward the grandest vision the universe has for you. If you allow it, fear will completely immobilize you. And once it has you in its grip, it will fight to keep you from ever becoming your best self.
Oprah Winfrey (What I Know for Sure)
Aye, lass, courage like that is uncommon rare. It wasna ignorance, mind; he’d just seen two men flogged and he knew the same was coming to him. It’s just he had made up his mind there was no help for it. Boldness in battle is nothing out of the way for a Scotsman, ye ken, but to face down fear in cold blood is rare in any man.
Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
None was more indifferent to convention than herself, and the marriage tie especially excited her ridicule, but she despised entirely those who disregarded the by-laws of society, yet lacked courage to suffer the results of their boldness: to seek the good opinion of the world, and yet secretly to act counter to its idea of decorum, was a very contemptible hypocrisy.
W. Somerset Maugham (The Merry-Go-Round)
I’ve been subjected to ridicule and derision every day of my life. In spite of which, did I not take courage and boldly present myself at that examination? Yes! Only to fail miserably... In a world like this, where the brazen, the shameless, the evil-hearted alone prosper, a weak and penniless scholar like myself is destined forever to be a failure and a laughingstock.
Osamu Dazai (Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy)
She began walking again, south towards The Mound. 'Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at ... something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls (One Day)
For a moment after his voice faltered and fell, the sanctuary was silent, and the voice throbbed like weeping, as if in his words the people recognized themselves, recognized the failure he described as their own. But then a new voice arose. Saltheart Foamfollower said boldly, "My Lord, we have not reached our end. True, the work of our lifetime has been to comprehend and consolidate the gains of our forebearers. But our labour will open the doors of the future. Our children and their children will gain because we have not lost heart, for faith and courage are the greatest gift that we can give to our descendants. And the Land holds mysteries of which we know nothing -- mysteries of hope as well as of peril. Be of good heart, Rockbrothers. Your faith is precious above all things."
Stephen R. Donaldson (Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #1))
He had never clearly fathomed the true weight of a word of good, truth, and purity cast in the stream of human speech and the deep bend it cut in it. Nor had he thought that a word spoken boldly and loudly, with no hint of false shame, but rather with courage, that this word would not drown in the ugly cries of fashionable satyrs but would plunge like a pearl into the abyss of public life and always find itself a shell. Many stumble over a good word, blushing in embarrassment, and utter a careless word boldly and loudly, never suspecting that it, too, unfortunately, will not go for naught but will leave a long trail of often times ineradicable evil. p. 296
Ivan Goncharov (Oblomov)
The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at… something..
David Nicholls (One Day)
{Colonel Carr's testimony of Colonel Robert Ingersoll at his funeral} He was the boldest, most aggressive, courageous, virile, and the kindest and gentlest and most considerate and loving man I ever knew. His was a nature that yielded to no obstacles, that could not be moved nor turned aside by the allurements of place or position, the menaces of power, the favors of the opulent, or the enticing influences of public opinion. Entering upon his career in an age of obsequiousness and time-serving, when the values of political and religious views were estimated by what they would bring from the ruling party and from the church, in offices and emoluments and benefices, he assailed the giant evils of the times with the strength and power of Hercules and ground them to dust under his trip-hammer blows. Throughout his whole active life, there has been no greater and more potential influence than the personality of this sublime character in breaking the shackles of the slave, and in freeing men and women and children from the bonds of ignorance and superstition.
Eugene Asa Carr
Don’t strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else. Admitting a weakness is a sign of strength. Acknowledging weakness doesn’t make a leader less effective. Everybody in your organization benefits when you delegate responsibilities that fall outside your core competency. Thoughtful delegation will allow someone else in your organization to shine. Your weakness is someone’s opportunity. Leadership is not always about getting things done “right.” Leadership is about getting things done through other people. The people who follow us are exactly where we have led them. If there is no one to whom we can delegate, it is our own fault. As a leader, gifted by God to do a few things well, it is not right for you to attempt to do everything. Upgrade your performance by playing to your strengths and delegating your weaknesses. There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination. Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing. My competence in these areas defines my success as a pastor. A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don’t show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor). In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time. To develop a competent team, help the leaders in your organization discover their leadership competencies and delegate accordingly. Once you step outside your zone, don’t attempt to lead. Follow. The less you do, the more you will accomplish. Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed. Accepting the status quo is the equivalent of accepting a death sentence. Where there’s no progress, there’s no growth. If there’s no growth, there’s no life. Environments void of change are eventually void of life. So leaders find themselves in the precarious and often career-jeopardizing position of being the one to draw attention to the need for change. Consequently, courage is a nonnegotiable quality for the next generation leader. The leader is the one who has the courage to act on what he sees. A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately. It is not his insight that sets the leader apart from the crowd. It is his courage to act on what he sees, to speak up when everyone else is silent. Next generation leaders are those who would rather challenge what needs to change and pay the price than remain silent and die on the inside. The first person to step out in a new direction is viewed as the leader. And being the first to step out requires courage. In this way, courage establishes leadership. Leadership requires the courage to walk in the dark. The darkness is the uncertainty that always accompanies change. The mystery of whether or not a new enterprise will pan out. The reservation everyone initially feels when a new idea is introduced. The risk of being wrong. Many who lack the courage to forge ahead alone yearn for someone to take the first step, to go first, to show the way. It could be argued that the dark provides the optimal context for leadership. After all, if the pathway to the future were well lit, it would be crowded. Fear has kept many would-be leaders on the sidelines, while good opportunities paraded by. They didn’t lack insight. They lacked courage. Leaders are not always the first to see the need for change, but they are the first to act. Leadership is about moving boldly into the future in spite of uncertainty and risk. You can’t lead without taking risk. You won’t take risk without courage. Courage is essential to leadership.
Andy Stanley (Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future)
What are you going to do with your life?’ In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer. The future rose up ahead for her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all?She began walking again, south towards The Mound. ‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at… something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved. If you ever get the chance.That was the general theory, even if she hadn’t made a very good start of it
David Nicholls
This tub is for washing your courage...When you are born your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you'll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of a spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true. ... This tub is for washing your wishes...For the wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to catch the world in its changing and change with it. ... Lastly, we must wash your luck. When souls queue up to be born, they all leap up at just the last moment, touching the lintel of the world for luck. Some jump high and can seize a great measure of luck; some jump only a bit and snatch a few loose strands. Everyone manages to catch some. If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money, and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life. If you know how to look, you can examine the kneecaps of a human and tell how much luck they have left. No bath can replenish luck that has been spent on avoiding an early death by automobile accident or winning too many raffles in a row. No bath can restore luck lost through absentmindedness and overconfidence. But luck withered by conservative, tired, riskless living can be pumped up again--after all, it is only a bit thirsty for something to do.
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
1. Become people who seek the truth, create value and possess wisdom and enthusiasm. 2. Do not cause trouble to others, and always take responsibility for your own actions. 3. Be considerate and polite, reject violence and value trustworthiness and cooperation. 4. Boldly speak out for your beliefs and act courageously for the sake of truth and justice. 5. Cultivate an enterprising spirit and become respectable leaders of Japan and the world.
Daisaku Ikeda (The New Human Revolution - Volume 12)
And cried for mamma, at every turn'-I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain.-Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes, and those thick brows, that instead of rising arched, sink in the middle, and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes-Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet, hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.' 'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes, and even forehead,' he replied. 'I do - and that won't help me to them.' 'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking - tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors, and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!
Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights)
Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls (One Day)
A leap of faith means hurdling into the unknown, and believing in our hearts that we will make it to the other side, despite not yet knowing what the other side is going to look like. It is taking bold action in spite of the fact that this action is forcing us out of our familiar territory, and our comfort zones. It also means taking action even though we cannot foresee the results or consequences of our choice. To do this requires both faith and courage!
Amanda Harvey
He glanced at James before continuing. “If you're going to survive this, the first rule you need to learn is never count on anyone but yourself. Never. People make mistakes, and the zombies are fast. They don't need to sleep or eat anything but us. Don't leave your protection in the hands of someone else.
Rose Wynters (Phase One: Identify (Territory of the Dead, #1))
Beyond all of that, I could see the wall I had seen from inside the train, the wall that runs along the train line. I assumed that there, behind it, was the west, and I was right. I could have been wrong, but I was right.' If she had any future it was over there, and she needed to get to it. I sit in the chair exploring the meaning of dumbstruck, rolling the word around in my mind. I laugh with Miriam as she laughs at herself, and at the boldness of being sixteen. At sixteen you are invulnerable. I laugh with her about rummaging around for a ladder in other people's sheds, and I laugh harder when she finds one. We laugh at the improbability of it, of someone barely more than a child poking around in Beatrix Potter's garden by the Wall, watching out for Mr McGregor and his blunderbuss, and looking for a step-ladder to scale one of the most fortified barriers on earth. We both like the girl she was, and I like the woman she has become. She says suddenly, 'I still have the scars on my hands from climbing the barbed wire, but you can't see them so well now.' She holds out her hands. The soft parts of her palms are crazed with definite white scares, each about a centimeter long. The first fence was wire mesh with a roll of barbed wire along the top.
Anna Funder (Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall)
Choose truth. Resist not-truth. Think courageously, meaning boldly. Reject the propaganda of the world. Choose truth. You won’t find it in the loudest, most insistent, most demanding voices. Truth is quiet. Very quiet. Truth is found in stillness and privacy. It brings peace. Be still. Choose truth. Believe. Be grateful.
Jean-Michel Hansen
Later I will tell him: our courage comes out in different ways. We are brave in our bold dreams but also in our hesitations. We are brave in our willingness to carry on even as our pounding hearts say, “You will fail and land on your face.” Brave in our terrific tolerance for making a hundred mistakes. Day after day. We are brave in our persistence.
Kyo Maclear (Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation)
I have, and always will, respect people that keep it real no matter what. Most people say “Just keep it real with me,” but the fact of the matter is this: Most people can’t handle the truth, don’t want to accept the truth, deny the truth, or simply aren’t willing to face THEIR truth. The next time that you tell somebody to be honest with you, make sure that you mean what you say. Have the courage to pay more attention, listen, and observe. But have greater courage to acknowledge “what is” and face YOUR truth with boldness. The truth is better than a lie any day. Be fearless!
Stephanie Lahart
Emile was a journalist who had acquired more reputation by doing nothing than others from a successful productive career. A bold, biting, spirited critic, he possessed all the qualities of his defects. Jovial and outspoken, he would blister a friend to his face with a thousand sarcasms but, behind his back, he would defend him with courage and loyalty. He made fun of everything, his own prospects included. Always short of money, he remained, like all men with a future before them, wallowing in inexpressible idleness, condensing a whole book into one epigram for the benefit of people who were incapable of putting one witticism into a whole book. Lavish of promises that he never kept, he had made his fortune and reputation into a cushion on which he slept, thus running the risk of coming to his senses, as an old man, in an almshouse. With all that, keeping faith with his friends to the point of death, a swaggering cynic and as simple-hearted as a child, he worked only by fits and starts or under the spur of necessity.
Honoré de Balzac (The Wild Ass's Skin)
Courage, traveler. Weird. It's coming from inside her. Hold your little map and shout to the darkness, it says. Shout this: You are nothing, darkness, against something as old as love. Shout: I will walk right through you, darkness, because I am, and I will be. This boldness-she's felt it before. In the truck, when she first saw Billy. No, before that, when she was brave, so brave, and brought Anna to the shore. This is how you save yourself? This small voice inside? This microscopic cell of belief, allowed to divide? Yep. Uh-huh. The voice is your own personal sword and shield-remember that. Remember that every hard day.
Deb Caletti (Essential Maps for the Lost)
We believe that cowardice is to blame for the world's injustices. We believe that peace is hard-won, that sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: We believe that justice is more important than peace. We believe in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions. We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. We believe in acknowledging fear and the extent to which it rules us. We believe in facing that fear no matter what the cost to our comfort, our happiness, or even to our sanity. We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves. We believe, not in just bold words, but in bold deeds to match them. We believe that pain and death are better than cowardice and inaction because we believe in action. We do not believe in living comfortable lives. We do not believe that silence is useful. We do not believe in good manners. We do not believe in empty heads, empty mouths, or empty hands. We do not believe that learning to master violence encourages unnecessary violence. We do not believe that we should be allowed to stand idly by. We do not believe that any other virtue is more important than bravery.
Veronica Roth
Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.
Walt Mason
Getting ahead of the next curve requires courage and communication: Courage to determine the next bold move, and communication to keep the troops committed to the value of moving forward. Rallying stakeholders to move together in a common course of action is all part of the innovation and survival process. Leaders at every level in an organization need to be skillful at creating resonance if that organization is to control its own destiny.
Nancy Duarte (Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences)
The paradigm shift is coming. It’s written into the dialectic. We are the pathfinders of the dialectic. We are the vanguard of the enlightenment. Someone has to be way ahead of the game to lead everyone else forward. The pioneers, the scouts, the adventurers, the radicals, the explorers, those that first step into the unknown along paths never trod before, surrounded everywhere by darkness, must be of exceptional character, boldness, curiosity and courage.
Thomas Stark (Base Reality: Ultimate Existence (The Truth Series Book 16))
But I’ve come to the point where I’m not sure anymore just what God counts as radical. And I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I’m short on sleep and patience is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I’ve lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day — an afternoon with a colicky baby where I’m probably going to snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbor — without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough.
Michael Scott Horton (Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World)
How would she fill the days? She had no idea. The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at....something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. Eat sensibly. Stuff like that.
David Nicholls (Starter for Ten)
For what it's worth, I know how you feel," Conner told him. "I used to doubt myself a lot. When people told me I wasn't good enough, I believed them. It's hard not to when you're young." "Tell me about it," Bold said. "Does it get better when you're older?" "It did for me," Conner said. "How?" Bolt asked. "Someone else believed in me," Conner said. "All it took was one person's approval and suddenly I believed myself, too. It gave me a shield to block out all the doubt and negativity. It made me realize I was just as capable and deserving as the people I compared myself to. But you know what? I was wrong." "You were?" Bolt asked. "Totally," Conner said. "I didn't need someone else. I had confidence in myself, deep down inside, the whole time. Approval is just a shortcut to self-worth, but sometimes we have to find things out on your own. Sometimes if we want something bad enough, we have to inspire ourselves to get it. Sometimes we have to be our own superhero." Out of everything Conner said, he could tell this resonated with the boy the most. If he wanted to help people, maybe he had to start with himself. "But what if I fail?" Bolt asked. "What if the Snake Lord wins and I don't save anyone? Then I'll never be a superhero." "A very wise man once told me that 'courage is what makes a superhero super,'" Conner said. "He never sad anything about succeeding.
Chris Colfer (An Author's Odyssey (The Land of Stories, #5))
Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory. Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned. Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield, In your eyes I have read That to be enthroned is to be enslaved, And to be understood is to be leveled down, And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed. Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences, And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, And urging of seas, And of mountains that burn in the night, And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul. Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, And we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous.
Kahlil Gibran
And so Emma Morley walked home in the evening light, trailing her disappointment behind her. The day was cooling off now, and she shivered as she felt something in the air, an unexpected shudder of anxiety that ran the length of her spine, and was so intense as to make her stop walking for a moment. Fear of the future, she thought. She found herself at the imposing junction of George Street and Hanover Street as all around her people hurried home from work or out to meet friends or lovers, all with a sense of purpose and direction. And here she was, twenty-two and clueless and sloping back to a dingy flat, defeated once again. ‘What are you doing to do with your life?’ In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever, teachers. her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer. The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all? She began walking again, south towards The Mound. ‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and be courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at…something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
David Nicholls (One Day)
So meaning is only a moment and a transition from absurdity to absurdity, and absurdity only a moment and a transition from meaning to meaning. Oh, that Siegfried, blond and blue-eyed, the German hero, had to fall by my hand, the most loyal and courageous! He had everything in himself that I treasured as the greater and more beautiful; he was my power, my boldness, my pride. I would have gone under in the same battle, and so only assassination was left to me. If I wanted to go on living, it could only be through trickery and cunning. Judge not! Think of the blond savage of the German forests, who had to betray the hammer-brandishing thunder to the pale Near Eastern god who was nailed to the wood like a chicken marten. The courageous were overcome by a certain contempt for themselves. But their life force bade them to go on living, and they betrayed their beautiful wild Gods, their holy trees and their awe of the German forests.
C.G. Jung (The Red Book: Liber Novus)
I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.
Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)
Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. Take care Ron, Alex
Jon Krakauer
O LORD, all treasures of wisdom and truth and holiness are stored up in your boundless being. Grant that through our constant fellowship with you, those graces of Christian character may more and more take shape within me: The grace of a thankful and uncomplaining heart; The grace to await your timing patiently and to answer your call promptly; The grace of courage whether in suffering or in danger; The grace to endure any hardship in the fight against evil; The grace of boldness to stand up for what is right; The grace of being adequately prepared for any temptation; The grace of physical discipline; The grace of truthfulness; The grace to treat others as I would like them to treat me; The grace of sensitivity, that I may refrain from hasty judgment; The grace of silence, that I may refrain from thoughtless speech; The grace of forgiveness toward all who have wronged me; The grace of tenderness toward all who are weaker than myself; The grace of faithfulness in continuing to desire that you will answer these prayers.
John Baillie (A Diary of Private Prayer)
Jesus wanted freedom for women too,” Regina continued, “but His notion of liberation is very different from our limited one. His teachings are for the most part genderless; they apply to everyone. What is important is that my identity doesn’t lie primarily in being a professor, or being a wife, or even in being a mother. Those things will always fall short. Entire careers get swept away at a moment’s notice at the presentation of a pink slip, a vote of the elders, an accusation of a student, a cut in the budget. Marriages face infidelities, for instance, and end up like car wrecks from which people can recover but are never again the same. Children grow up and move far away and forget to write or call—as they should.” She smiled wistfully. “The point is, if you have your identity in any of these things, it’s surefire disappointment. Anything man-made—or woman-made, for that matter—will and does fail you. Having my identity in Christ first and foremost gives me the courage—yes, the courage—to live my life boldly, purposefully, in everything I do, no matter what that is.” I
Carolyn Weber (Surprised by Oxford)
A good marketer can sell practically anything to anyone. Tobacco is literally dried, decaying vegetable matter that you light on fire and inhale, breathing horrid-tasting, toxic fumes into your lungs.121 At one point marketers promoted smoking as a status symbol and claimed it had health benefits. Once you give it a try, the addictive nature of the drug kicks in, and the agency’s job becomes much easier. If they can get you hooked, the product will sell itself. Since the product is actually poison, advertisers need to overcome your instinctual aversion. That’s a big hill for alcohol advertisements to climb, which is why the absolute best marketing firms on the globe, firms with psychologists and human behavior specialists on staff, are hired to create the ads. These marketers know that the most effective sale is an emotional sale, one that plays on your deepest fears, your ultimate concerns. Alcohol advertisements sell an end to loneliness, claiming that drinking provides friendship and romance. They appeal to your need for freedom by saying drinking will make you unique, brave, bold, or courageous. They promise fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness. All these messages speak to your conscious and unconscious minds.
Annie Grace (This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life)
Confidence makes you strong, not proud. Composure makes you tough, not timid. Courage makes you bold, not arrogant. Prudence makes you practical, not intolerant. Respect makes you honorable, not weak. Humility makes you modest, not spineless. Silence makes you prudent, not feeble. Meekness makes you gentle, not helpless. Kindness makes you caring, not vulnerable. Charity makes you compassionate, not spineless. Mercy makes you sympathetic, not fragile. Patience makes you cautious, not powerless. Piety makes you noble, not bigoted. Loyalty makes you trustworthy, not foolish. Justice makes you fair, not vengeful. Integrity makes you strong, not stern. Chastity makes you disciplined, not narrow. Wealth makes you prominent, not selfish. Power makes you influential, not self centered. Honor makes you important, not narcissistic. Fame makes you privileged, not spoiled. Servitude makes you respectable, not sycophantic. Self-control makes you dignified, not self-righteous. Discipline makes you focused, not obsessed. Imagination makes you special, not odd. Pleasure makes you happy, not corruptible. Goodness makes you saintly, not narrow. Faith makes you spiritual, not obstinate. Love makes you mystical, not religious. God makes you transcendent, not ordinary.
Matshona Dhliwayo
There is a secret a person with great knowledge discovers along the path to truth. That is, the more doors you open to understanding the world, the smaller you feel. And because you begin to feel smaller and smaller until your ego disappears, the more humble you become. Therefore, any man who behaves arrogantly with what little he knows, or claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing. Real greatness does not reside inside those who feel large. The truly wise are meek. Yet being small and meek do not make one weak. Arming oneself with true knowledge generates strong confidence and a bold spirit that makes you a lion of God. The Creator does not want you to suffer, yet we are being conditioned by society to accept suffering, weak and passive dispositions under the belief that such conditions are favorable by God. Weakness is not a virtue praised by God. How could he desire for you to be weak if he tells us to stand by our conscience? Doing so requires strength. However, there is a difference between arrogance when inflating your ego, and confidence when one truly gets closer to God. One feels large, while the other feels small. Why? Because a man of wisdom understands that he is just a small pea in a sea of infinite atoms, and that in the end — we are all connected. And did you not know that the smaller a creature is, the bolder its spirit?
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
Pay attention to your dreams and follow them closely to where they may lead you. No matter how crazy or seemingly impossible they appear — to you or the world. Yet, be open to the possibility that the road, even the destination will likely be different than what you had imagined. Then it matters not what actually happens. For the journey becomes the destination, constantly metamorphosing with each and every step along the way. You see, taking a bold leap into the unknown means trusting that you will either land on a feathered bed or you will come to realise that you can fly, perhaps toward undreamed of heights. This, as I conceive, is what flowing through a full life entails: Acknowledging the risks of seeking to materialise your dreams, courageously embracing the uncertainty rather than fearing it, and confidently going for the jump anyway. Abandon the comfort. Float away. Adjust the sails according to the Winds of Change.
Omar Cherif
In the campaign of 1876, Robert G. Ingersoll came to Madison to speak. I had heard of him for years; when I was a boy on the farm a relative of ours had testified in a case in which Ingersoll had appeared as an attorney and he had told the glowing stories of the plea that Ingersoll had made. Then, in the spring of 1876, Ingersoll delivered the Memorial Day address at Indianapolis. It was widely published shortly after it was delivered and it startled and enthralled the whole country. I remember that it was printed on a poster as large as a door and hung in the post-office at Madison. I can scarcely convey now, or even understand, the emotional effect the reading of it produced upon me. Oblivious of my surroundings, I read it with tears streaming down my face. It began, I remember: "The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life.We hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see the pale cheeks of women and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers..." I was fairly entranced. he pictured the recruiting of the troops, the husbands and fathers with their families on the last evening, the lover under the trees and the stars; then the beat of drums, the waving flags, the marching away; the wife at the turn of the lane holds her baby aloft in her arms--a wave of the hand and he has gone; then you see him again in the heat of the charge. It was wonderful how it seized upon my youthful imagination. When he came to Madison I crowded myself into the assembly chamber to hear him: I would not have missed it for every worldly thing I possessed. And he did not disappoint me. A large handsome man of perfect build, with a face as round as a child's and a compelling smile--all the arts of the old-time oratory were his in high degree. He was witty, he was droll, he was eloquent: he was as full of sentiment as an old violin. Often, while speaking, he would pause, break into a smile, and the audience, in anticipation of what was to come, would follow him in irresistible peals of laughter. I cannot remember much that he said, but the impression he made upon me was indelible. After that I got Ingersoll's books and never afterward lost an opportunity to hear him speak. He was the greatest orater, I think, that I have ever heard; and the greatest of his lectures, I have always thought, was the one on Shakespeare. Ingersoll had a tremendous influence upon me, as indeed he had upon many young men of that time. It was not that he changed my beliefs, but that he liberated my mind. Freedom was what he preached: he wanted the shackles off everywhere. He wanted men to think boldly about all things: he demanded intellectual and moral courage. He wanted men to follow wherever truth might lead them. He was a rare, bold, heroic figure.
Robert Marion La Follette (La Follette's Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences)
This is where these writers placed their bets, striking a dangerous balance between silence and art. How do writers and readers find each other under such dangerous circumstances? Reading, like writing, under these conditions is disobedience to a directive in which the reader, our Eve, already knows the possible consequences of eating that apple but takes a bold bite anyway. How does that reader find the courage to take this bite, open that book? After an arrest, an execution? Of course he or she may find it in the power of the hushed chorus of other readers, but she can also find it in the writer’s courage in having stepped forward, in having written, or rewritten, in the fi rst place. Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. Th is is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them. Coming from where I come from, with the history I have—having spent the first twelve years of my life under both dictatorships of Papa Doc and his son, JeanClaude—this is what I’ve always seen as the unifying principle among all writers. This is what, among other things, might join Albert Camus and Sophocles to Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Osip Mandelstam, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Ralph Waldo Ellison. Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, a future that we may have yet to dream of, someone may risk his or her life to read us. Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, we may also save someone’s life, because they have given us a passport, making us honorary citizens of their culture.
Edwidge Danticat (Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work)
That month he developed the habit every night of picking up the Bible the last thing before he went to bed and reading a few verses, and from thinking a prayer and from thinking thanksgiving, he advanced to the place where he boldly, in the silence and serenity of the little room, got down on his knees and prayed the prayer of thanksgiving. Then he followed it by the prayer of asking. He found himself asking God to take care of all the world, to help everyone who needed help; to put the spirit and courage into every heart to fare forth and to attempt the Great Adventure on its own behalf... Then he arose, in some way fortified, a trifle bigger, slightly prouder, more capable, more of a man that he had been the day before. He had asked for help and he knew that he was receiving help, and he knew that never again would he be ashamed to face any man, or any body of men, and tell them that he had asked for help and that help had been forthcoming, and that the same experience lay in the reach of every man if he would only take the Lord at His word; if he would only do what all men are so earnestly urged to do--believe.
Gene Stratton-Porter (The Keeper of the Bees)
It is one of the greatest Curses visited upon Mankind, he told me, that they shall fear where no Fear is: this astrological and superstitious Humour disarms men's Hearts, it breaks their Courage, it makes them help to bring such Calamities on themselves. Then he stopped short and looked at me, but my Measure was not yet fill'd up so I begg' d him to go on, go on. And he continued: First, they fancy that such ill Accidents must come to pass, and so they render themselves fit Subjects to be wrought upon; it is a Disgrace to the Reason and Honour of Mankind that every fantasticall Humourist can presume to interpret the Skies (here he grew Hot and put down his Dish) and to expound the Time and Seasons and Fates of Empires, assigning the Causes of Plagues and Fires to the Sins of Men or the Judgements of God. This weakens the Constancy of Humane Actions, and affects Men with Fears, Doubts, Irresolutions and Terrours. I was afraid of your Moving Picture, I said without thought, and that was why I left. It was only Clock-work, Nick. But what of the vast Machine of the World, in which Men move by Rote but in which nothing is free from Danger? Nature yields to the Froward and the Bold. It does not yield, it devours: You cannot master or manage Nature. But, Nick, our Age can at least take up the Rubbidge and lay the Foundacions: that is why we must study the principles of Nature, for they are our best Draught. No, sir, you must study the Humours and Natures of Men: they are corrupt, and therefore your best Guides to understand Corrupcion. The things of the Earth must be understood by the sentient Faculties, not by the Understanding. There was a Silence between us now until Sir Chris. says, Is your Boy in the Kitchin? I am mighty Hungry.
Peter Ackroyd (Hawksmoor)
Of real sensational journalism, as it exists in France, in Ireland, and in America, we have no trace in this country. When a journalist in Ireland wishes to create a thrill, he creates a thrill worth talking about. He denounces a leading Irish member for corruption, or he charges the whole police system with a wicked and definite conspiracy. When a French journalist desires a frisson there is a frisson; he discovers, let us say, that the President of the Republic has murdered three wives. Our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously as this; their moral condition is, as regards careful veracity, about the same. But it is their mental calibre which happens to be such that they can only invent calm and even reassuring things. The fictitious version of the massacre of the envoys of Pekin was mendacious, but it was not interesting, except to those who had private reasons for terror or sorrow. It was not connected with any bold and suggestive view of the Chinese situation. It revealed only a vague idea that nothing could be impressive except a great deal of blood. Real sensationalism, of which I happen to be very fond, may be either moral or immoral. But even when it is most immoral, it requires moral courage. For it is one of the most dangerous things on earth genuinely to surprise anybody. If you make any sentient creature jump, you render it by no means improbable that it will jump on you. But the leaders of this movement have no moral courage or immoral courage; their whole method consists in saying, with large and elaborate emphasis, the things which everybody else says casually, and without remembering what they have said. When they brace themselves up to attack anything, they never reach the point of attacking anything which is large and real, and would resound with the shock. They do not attack the army as men do in France, or the judges as men do in Ireland, or the democracy itself as men did in England a hundred years ago. They attack something like the War Office--something, that is, which everybody attacks and nobody bothers to defend, something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers
G.K. Chesterton (Heretics)
the case is even stronger, and the parallel with madness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind , not to loose . They may well call their law the "chain" of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.
G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
Woke is not merely a state of awareness; it is a force that dismantles the walls of ignorance and complacency. It is the unwavering commitment to truth, justice, and equality, igniting a flame within the hearts of those who seek a better world. To be woke is to rise above the shadows of indifference and confront the uncomfortable realities that permeate our society. It is to acknowledge the deep-rooted biases, systemic injustices, and the pervasive discrimination that persistently plague our communities. Woke is the courage to challenge the status quo, to question the narratives that uphold oppression, and to demand accountability from those who hold power. It is the unwavering belief that every voice matters, regardless of race, gender, or social standing. Woke is the realization that progress requires action, not just words. It is the recognition that the fight for justice extends beyond hashtags and viral trends. It is a constant pursuit of education, empathy, and empathy and the willingness to stand up for what is right, even in the face of adversity. Woke is a movement that refuses to be silenced. It is the collective power of individuals coming together to amplify marginalized voices, to challenge the systems that perpetuate inequality, and to build a future where everyone has an equal opportunity to thrive. Being woke is not an endpoint; it is a lifelong journey. It is the commitment to unlearn and relearn, to listen and understand, and to continuously evolve in the pursuit of a more inclusive and equitable world. So, let us embrace our woke-ness, not as a trend or a buzzword, but as a guiding principle in our lives. Let us use our awareness to foster meaningful change, to uplift the marginalized, and to build bridges where there were once divides. For in our collective awakening lies the power to reshape the world, to create a future where justice, compassion, and equality prevail. Let us be woke, let us be bold, and let us be the catalysts of a brighter tomorrow.
D.L. Lewis