c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
What was the difference between Anne Frank and any other 15 year old girl living the same nightmare? Nothing! Aside from the fact that Anne spoke through her writings while others kept silent. Someone very special to me recently asked how can I write such personal things as child abuse, relationship problems, sexual addiction, and not fear how the family will feel about these revealings. I have the audacity to write such things because it's MY story. Not my parents, not my brothers, not my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents... MINE. Note to those contemplating writing nonfiction. Write the story. It's yours to tell. Nevermind how your family will feel. Those that love you will not judge you. I promise. Do not let your testimony be in vain.
— Katandra Jackson Nunnally
She wasn't scared of going deep, deep down in a world of no air and little light
— Katherine Paterson
Now it seems like no matter what I decide, I'll be betraying someone.
— Veronica Roth, Four: A Divergent Story Collection
SO WHAT" Harry shouted. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? Do you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the house cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there, it's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side!
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Anyone can be brave for five minutes or an hour or two. The bravery no one talks about is the hardest bravery of all. When you get up in the morning even though you'd rather be dead, that's brave.
— Carys Bray, A Song for Issy Bradley
O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely,
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
So while this is a book about fighting back, in the end this is a book about love. The songbirds and the salmon need your heart, no matter how weary, because even a broken heart is still made of love. They need your heart because they are disappearing, slipping into that longest night of extinction, and the resistance is nowhere in sight. We will have to build that resistance from whatever comes to hand: whispers and prayers, history and dreams, from our bravest words and braver actions. It will be hard, there will be a cost, and in too many implacable dawns it will seem impossible. But we will have to do it anyway. So gather your heart and join with every living being. With love as our First Cause, how can we fail?
— Derrick Jensen, Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet
Bravery is standing with the truth and right
— Imran Khan
O, that's a brave man! He writes brave versrs, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely,
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
You can tease it's mane all you like, but you can't turn a house cat into a lion.
— Anne Fortier, The Lost Sisterhood
It is easier to stand in front of a bullet than it is to stand up to the world.
— Lori Goodwin
He might have perfect form and better swordsmanship, but I had one thing on my side that stacked the deck in my favor. I was absolutely crazy.
— Katherine McIntyre, An Airship Named Desire
sometimes bravery lies in stepping down from the last step for the better result of mankind and that's where life differentiate between best and the great ones.
— p.r.d
I learned it was better to tiptoe through life and arrive at death's door safely.
— Marquita Burke-DeJesus
I think bravery is a lot less formal than it sounds. Bravery is being able to have a conversation with a stranger. It's going back to school even after years of being away. It's being you even when it's easier to be someone else.
— Marquita Burke-DeJesus
My hands felt electrically charged. My blood was ready to burst from my veins and my heart was beating a manic rhythm. I was frightened out of my wits but I was catching a familiar, addictive adrenaline wave. I was ready to taunt the reaper.
— Bobby Adair, Infected
I think it's the bravest thing in the world - to run straight at love, even knowing how badly you could get hurt.
— Emery Lord, Open Road Summer
But the king was frowning. "I expected you a month ago."Aedion actually had the nerve to shrug. "Apologies. The Staghorns were slammed with a final winter storm. I left when I could."Every person in the hall held their breath.
— Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire
maybe here, in dauntless, bravery is the highest form of wisdom. the acknowledgement that life can and should be lived without fear
— Veronica Roth, The Son
Brave' covers everything from complete insanity and bloody disregard of other people's lives - generals tend to go in for that sort - to drunkenness, foolhardiness, and outright idiocy - to the sort of thing that will make a man sweat and tremble and throw up . . . and go and do what he thinks he has to do anyway.
— Diana Gabaldon, Written in My Own Heart's Blood
Deeds of heroism are wrought here more than those of romance, when, defying torture, and braving death itself, the fugitive voluntarily threads his way back to the terrors and perils of that dark land, that he may bring out his sister, or mother, or wife.
— Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
It will always take a good deal more courage to do something foolishly dangerous, when it is planned, than when it happens by surprise.
— Steven J. Carroll, Worlds Unending
The truth will be never shared to anyone. They have no bravery to know the truth. You will help us. We will help you.
— dhaniRT
EMTs learned to love brave patients--they weren't nearly such a pain in the ass as the whiners--but not to trust them. In the name of courage, they would hide symptoms, not ask for help when there was help hovering around them anxious to give them succor...
— Nevada Barr, Liberty Falling
It is the bravery of the lion that enables you the lion’s share of the power. More important than all, know this: bravery begets victory.
— S.A. Bouraleh, The Serpent's Son
They don’t have classes on bravery in middle school. If they did I’d have signed up. It would have been helpful to learn how to stare down what I feared most and not blink.
— Shannon Wiersbitzky, What Flowers Remember
I'm scared all the time," she whispered. "You'd be an idiot if you weren't," Anne said. "And you wouldn't be brave either.
— Lauren Oliver, Panic
In the end, a lack of compatibility is what ruins relationships. You can't force someone to be an eagle when they are a duck. Nobody wants to fly solo. Dreams were meant to be shared together.
— Shannon L. Alder
Keep calm. You have the forest in your blood.
— Nenia Campbell, Black Beast
Never take counsel of your fears.
— Stonewall Jackson
Everyone loves a kick-ass girl. (Well- maybe not her enemies, but you know what I mean.)
— Sarah Cross, Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader
For our path in life...is stony and rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!
— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything.
— Elizabeth I
If you don't have shadows, you're not in the light.
— Lady Gaga
But then he stops at the door frame and says, It's 9:24. Telling me the time is a small act of betrayal-and therefore an ordinary act of bravery. It is maybe the first time I've seen Peter be truly Dauntless.
— Veronica Roth, Insurgent
Most so-called brave people lack imagination. As though they can’t conceive of what would happen if something went wrong. The truly brave overcome their imagination and do what they have to do. 2
— Charles Bukowski
Women have their own braveries, their own mighty courageousness that is of woman, and not to be compared with the courage shown by man.
— Richard Llewellyn
Foxes were dreaded animals. They were not large or fierce, like the bears and tigers that roamed the mountains, but they were known to be fiendishly clever. some people even believed that foxes possessed evil magic. It was said that a fox could lure a man to his doom, tricking him into coming to its den, where somehow he would be fed to its offspring."Even to say the word made a trickle of fear run down Tree-Ear's spine..."'So it was dusk, and I was still a good distance away. Suddenly, a fox appeared before me. It stopped there, right in the middle of the path, grinning with all its teeth shining white, licking its lips, its eyes glowing, its broad tail swishing back and forth slowly, back and forth-'"'Enough!' Tree-Ear's eyes were wide with horror. 'What happened?'"Crane-man picked up the last morsel of rice with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. 'Nothing,' he said. 'I have come to believe that foxes could not possibly be as clever as we think them. There I was, close enough to touch one, with a bad leg as well - and here I still am today.
— Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard
Those who are brave, are the greatest cowards of all. For they fear failure.
— James Miller
Life is short and you die at the end of it. But everyone wants to have a sense of purpose for their life no matter how long or short that life is. There is no greater purpose than to have the courage to be a member of one's country's military and thus to stand in the gap to defend that country's way of life. Particularly in the USA God is with each soldier, sailor, air[wo]man, and all Americans should be respectful and humbled by the fact that fellow Americans are willing to stand in the gap for us, those they leave behind, in times of war and cold war.
— Violet Weed
Let's go commit senseless acts of science.
— Seanan McGuire, Half-Off Ragnarok
Strike hard and true, crow, or I'll come back and haunt you.
— George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
I beg you take courage
—  the brave soul can mend even disaster.
Aricles and I are married. The Greek god Apollo found out and he threatened to discredit and shame me before the other gods unless Aricles refused to fight. To protect my honor and name, he has allowed all of you to insult and attack him, and I will not stand for him to be hurt again. By anyone." Bathymaas
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dark Bites
Even brave men blind themselves sometimes, when they are afraid to see.
— George R.R. Martin
The Fairy Queen has sent you to do brave deeds in this world. That High City that you see is in another world. Before you climb the path to it and hang your shield on its wall, go down into the valley and fight the dragon that you were sent to fight.
— Margaret Hodges, Saint George and the Dragon
This Land Is Protected By Million’s Blood Bath, If Needed, We’ll Fight Again By Sipping The Death Bowl....
— Muhammad Imran Hasan
[Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner belonged to] that small army of brave people who made it their duty, without thought of themselves or hope or expectation of reward, to strive for unpopular causes.[Chapman Cohen on the death of noted freethinker and peace advocate Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner]
— Chapman Cohen
You don’t know me well enough to be confident that I wouldn’t be able to live without you. I survived almost two decades of ignoring the fuck out of you, I can survive plenty more.
— Christine Celis, Snippets of Imagery
Honestly, I’m sorry you have no more power over me, but I’m not scared of you anymore. It’s just not worth my time.
— Embee, Tess Embers
I remember Cannae," she said, raising her head, "when we thought all was lost. Carthage had defeated us, and there were those who gave up hope. Yet we survived, by our fortitude, and by believing that we should endure. There are times, Marcus, when courage is all you have."I looked down at the stone floor, chastened into silence by her cold, stern words. This was her way, as it had always been. It was the Roman way. Grief was an indulgence; and though she surely suffered, her suffering was for her alone. It seemed hard, but she had come from a hard family, brave men and brave women who through the generations had survived by facing down hardship and loss. Of all her long line of ancestors, she was not going to be the one to break.And nor, I decided, was I.
— Paul Waters, Of Merchants & Heroes
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved for the sake of something greater.
— Veronica Roth, Allegiant
The ultimate act of heroism shouldn’t be death. You’re always saying you want to give Baz the stories he deserves... So you’re going to kill him off? Isn’t the best revenge supposed to be a life well-lived? The punk-rock way to end it would be to let them live happily ever after.
— Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
Come in, my dearFrom that harsh worldThat has rained elements of stoneUpon your tender face.Every soulShould receive a toast from usFor bravery!
— I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
You do realize that you are addressing the emperor of the Crescent Empire.""And you are addressing a free woman of the desert. You are not my emperor. Therefore, I am your equal.
— Sarah Beth Durst, Vessel
If you're wrestling with some sort of decision, reflect for a moment and ask yourself, Am I being brave, or am I being safe? In the end, it depends on whether we think God can be trusted.
— Gary Haugen
A coward,' he declared with dignity, when he'd stopped coughing and had got his breath back, 'dies a hundred times. A brave man dies but once. But Dame Fortune favours the brave and holds the coward in contempt.'— 	Dandelion
— Andrzej Sapkowski, Czas pogardy
And if not for the caterpillars and butterflies, who will I talk to? You'll be far away. And as for larger creatures, I'm not afraid. I have my thorns...to protect me.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In choosing a hypothesis there is no virtue in being timid. I clearly would have been burned at the stake in another age.
— Thomas Gold
Joan spoke kindly, explaining patiently, as he always patiently explained things to her. “It’s like in that book you gave me, Jane Eyre. Jane says she isn’t a bird caught in a net. Instead she’s a human being with an independent will and that she has a treasure inside her that will keep her alive, no matter if anything bad happens.
— Cate Campbell Beatty, Donor 23
What makes us brave isn't lacking the good sence to be afraid
—  it's looking back at what we've lived through and seeing if we've faced it well.
Bravery is looking into her eyes without shivering and compromising.
— M.F. Moonzajer
This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.
— Elmer Davis
I will tell you something my father once told me. The difference between a brave man and a coward is very simple. It is a problem of love. A coward loves only himself … The brave man loves other men first and himself last. (From Meyer's The Son)
— Phillipp Meyer
The fact is, when people choose to be brave instead of smart, their courage is generally so threatening to those who are smart rather than brave that they end up being maligned, not congratulated. This is what the Bible says we can expect.
— Gary Haugen
Bravery is absence of contemplation and idiocy is the extinction of it.
— M.F. Moonzajer
Bravery doesn't always mean that you have to be fearless. No one in this world fears nothing, so if you are fearless, then you are no one.
— Maureen Eguia
No one can tell you what you can and cannot put in your book. So be brave and just write!
— Chrys Fey
I just had to find the courage to take that first step.
— Kirsten Hubbard, Like Mandarin
I used to be terrified of my own weakness; if acknowledged it, I thought I would be overwhelmed by it. But I am stronger and braver than that. I am not so easily broken. I am strong enough to realize that it is alright to be fragile, to be less than perfect. Staying connected to that vulnerability, ironically, gives me strength.
— Hope Donahue, Beautiful Stranger: A Memoir of an Obsession with Perfection
I don't think you really belong here, Aviger." Xoxarle nodded wisely, slowly.Aviger shrugged, and did not raise his eyes. "I don't think any of us do.""The brave belong where they decide." Some harshness entered the Idiran's voice.
— Iain Banks
I thought of Bobby, of the last look he had given me, and at that moment I understood one of the differences between man and cat: man knows he's going to die, so he can get ready and be willing, even eager, to go. A cat knows the end is near, but that's all. He can't accept death: he can't trust in it; cats are perhaps too metaphysical an entity to need to believe in the idea of a beyond; a cat is his own god and man his creation.
— Jaime Manrique
I feel the fear, but I walk fast toward it.
— Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
Being the first to do anything takes guts.
— J.M. Darhower, Extinguish
As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.
— Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
Mission motto, sir," said Carrot cheerfully. "Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it.""I imagine he did," said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. "And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr Rincewind?""Er..." Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. "Er... roughly speaking, it means, 'We who are about to die don't want to', sir.
— Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero
It wasn’t brave because he wasn’t scared: it was the only thing he could do. But going back again to get his glasses, when he knew the wasps were there, when he was really scared. That was brave.’ ‘Because,’ she said, ‘when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.
— Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Yet though I must lose my life, fear shall never make me change colour.
— W.A. Neilson, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Be lucky, Xander, and be brave. You will find that bravery and luck are often bedfellows.
— David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow
...with a strong strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Those who serve and those who ruleLepers, kings and mindless foolsEmpire leaders, tyrant's toolsAll will fade with timeHail the cowards, brave at heartThe ugly and the beautifulThose who never felt their soulsAll live transient lives
— Kreator
I don’t for a moment think I am any braver or better than anybody else. This is how I attempt to explain what gives me the strength to do what I do; when that thunderbolt of an idea first hit me and inspired me to row across oceans, it filled me with a sense of purpose so strong that it overcame my fears. Even when boredom, frustration, fatigue or despair threatened to overwhelm me, it was that powerful sense of purpose that kept me going.
— Roz Savage, Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean
He’d read in a textbook once a quote by the famous Captain Reynolds: I am not a brave man. But bravery, like most things, can be faked. And sometimes, in rare instances, it will lead to the real thing.
— Dan Krokos, The Planet Thieves
He felt ready to face the devil, and strutted in the ballroom with the swagger of a cavalier.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Suicide Club
Fearing our confrontations is one thing... facing them unarmed is a completely different matter.
— Mark W. Boyer
They’re so brave," she said. "They’re all dead." "Only a coward would think of that," she said scornfully.
— Orson Scott Card, Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card
He was fond of saying, "There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,--only," he added, "ours must be tranquil.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Bravery is not an act of intelligence
—  it is just selfishness and stupidity.
Don't you know Poole, you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of some peril?
— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror
I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.
— Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Until that moment she had never thought she could do it. Never thought she would be brave enough or scared enough, or desperate enough to dare.
— Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
All those religions--they contradict each other on every point but every one of them is filled with ways to help people to be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying.
— Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Pulling through is what people do around here. There is a kind of bravery in their lives that isn’t bravery at all. It is automatic, unflinching, a mix of man and machine, consuming and unquestionable obligation meeting illness move for move in a giant even-steven game of chess – an unending round of something that looks like shadowboxing, though between love and death, which is the shadow? “Everyone admires us for our courage,” says one man. “They have no idea what they’re talking about.”“Courage requires options,” the man adds.“There are options,” says a woman with a thick suede headband. “You could give up. You could fall apart.”“No you can’t. Nobody does. I’ve never seen it,” says the man. “Well, not really fall apart.
— Lorrie Moore, Birds of America
Some have won a wild delight,By daring wilder sorrow;Could I gain thy love to-night,I'd hazard death to-morrow.
— Charlotte Brontë, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
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
We must step out of our digital avatars, and come together and have face-to-face dialogue as often as possible.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
The time for revolt is now, and the time for revolt is always!
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
Quitting is unthinkable and pain is just weakness leaving the body
— Karl Marlantes, What It is Like to Go to War
Greater love hath no man then this, that a man lay down his life for his friends
— The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Bravery is good when the cause is good.
— Bernhard Schlink, Homecoming
Bravery is the stupidity of heart.
— M.F. Moonzajer
Did I have the courage to forge a path
— Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
My goal is not to frighten you. My goal is to make you fight your fears.
— Moffat Machingura, How I Kissed Heartbreak Goodbye
Your personal declaration of will is the first step in a seemingly impossible journey.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
Be Lion in drawing a Line
— Zeeshan Ahmed
We are all scared
—  it is only the bravery that differentiates us from others.
Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!
— Bram Stoker, Dracula
Susan had told him once that bravery was when you wanted to pee your pants, but you kept fighting
— Dan Krokos, The Planet Thieves
Standing there at the stage door to the rest of your life. Time to dip your toe into the deep end. Try things. Say hi already. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Mess up again. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself. Lose things. Get over it. Hold your friends close. Gather your strength. Gain wisdom and beautiful stories. Be brave, and you'll have the time of your life.
— Taylor Swift
I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening.
— Lauren DeStefano, Sever
You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.
— Henry Rollins, Talk is Cheap: Volume 1
I was perfectly calm and perfectly insane, perfectly prepared to accept what the moment had offered. Indifference of that magnitude is rare and because it can be achieved only by someone ready to let go of who he is, it demands respect. It inspires awe in those who gaze upon it.
— Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions
You are guilty of no evil, Ransom of Thulcandra, except a little fearfulness. For that, the journey you go on is your pain, and perhaps your cure: for you must be either mad or brave before it is ended.
— C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet
...if you spent all your time being protected, you never got to find out anything new.
— Sage Blackwood, Jinx
You might just be the craziest person I've ever know, but you're also the bravest. - Marcus
— J. Scott Savage, Water Keep
But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and none less than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the Marsh of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights waiting by fifteen fords in their black pavilions, challenging all who come to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels; the glass hills, fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basilisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock." He raised his head, and the dark blue eyes were confused and sad."And all for nothing," he said. "I cannot touch her, whatever I do. For her sake, I have become a hero — I, sleepy Lír, my father's sport and shame — but I might as well have remained the dull fool I was. My great deeds mean nothing to her.
— Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
Be brave. Things will find their shape.
— Erin Bow, Plain Kate
Being brave is only standing up when you're afraid.
— Jon Steele, The Watchers
It takes bravery to recognize where in your life you are your own poison... it takes courage to do something about it.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Darkness enveloped us again, and for the first time in years, I welcomed it.
— Melika Dannese Lux, Corcitura
I like to call a spade a spade in politics and in everything else. That's why the zionists and the americans...The top officials hate Saddam Hussein.The White House is lying once again. He's a liar.He's the world's number one liar.He said there were chemical weapons in Iraq, and that Iraq is connected with terrorism.Later he declared: 'We didn't find any of this in Iraq.'What I want to say is that he also declared that what Saddam Hussein says is not true...This is defamation of your president of thirty five years.
— Saddam Hussein
Adding kidney beans to his cottage cheese and pineapple was an act of bravery Dave had not intended.
— Theric Jepson, Byuck
Bravery is not the trait of a fearless person, lest the reckless actions of a fool be considered brave. Bravery is the quality that allows us to overcome our fears and succeed.
— Gerard de Marigny, The Eagle's Plume
Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.
— Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Fighting giants was one thing. Bacchus making into a game was something else.
— Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena
After doing this work or the past twelve years and watching scarcity ride roughshod over our families, organizations, and communities, I'd say the one thing we have in common is that we're sick of feeling afraid. we want to dare greatly. We're tired of the national conversation centering on "What should we fear" and "Who should we blame?" We all want to be brave.
— Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
I had to stop him from arresting an old lady who let her dog urinate against the fire hydrant that was in front of Burgerville headquarters."You'll blow our cover.""But what if there is a fire?""The fire department will come and put it out," I said."With what?""Water," I said."Not from that hydrant," Monk said. "It's inoperable.""No, it's not," I said. "It can still be used.""There is urine all over it," Monk said. "no fireman would dare touch it, nor would any other human being.""Firefighters run into burning buildings," I said."They aren't going to care about some dog pee on a fire hydrant.""They would if they knew," Monk said. "We should call and warn them. Call Joe right now. He can get the word out faster than we can.""Every fire hydrant in the city has dog pee on it, Mr. Monk. It's how dogs mark their territory. I can guarantee you that every male dog that has passed that hydrant has pissed on it."He looked at me, wide eyed, "No.""It's what dogs do," I said. "The firefighters knows this."Monk swallowed hard. "And they still use the hydrants?""Of course they do.""They are the bravest men on earth," Monk said solemnly.
— Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk in Outer Space
Arthur without Excalibur was still Arthur.
— Kendare Blake, Anna Dressed in Blood
Bravery is measured by how hard you try, not by whether you actually succeed.
— Nancy Straight, Blood Debt
The drone in my ear, it’s like the tornado drill in elementary school, the hand-cranked siren that rang mercilessly, all of us hunched over on ourselves, facing the basement walls, heads tucked into our chests. Beth and me wedged tight, jeaned legs pressed against each other. The sounds of our own breathing. Before we all stopped believing a tornado, or anything, could touch us, ever
— Megan Abbott, Dare Me
He who fights with guns and knives is a coward! For how easy is it to kill with the single pull of a trigger? And how does human flesh stand to a sharpened metal? Even an idiot can kill with a gun and a knife! A man needs no courage at all to stand behind these things that make him feel invincible and bigger than he ever will be! I don't say that no one should fight! Because battles must be fought, and wars will always be won! But let those who fight, fight with bare hands! The measure of true strength! With his hands and feet and nothing but! The country with truly strong men is able to have soldiers that need not a knife, that need no guns! And if you can soar even higher than that; fight with your pens! Let us all write! And see the substance of the man through his philosophies and through his beliefs! And let one philosophy outdo another! Let one belief outlast another! And let this be how we determine the outcome of a war!
— C. JoyBell C.
Fear breeds cowardice, and cowardice compels bravery.
— Ogwo David Emenike
If it must be done, it's best done bravely.
— Courtney Milan, Unlocked
Sometimes it takes bravery in order to be a coward.
— Lionel Suggs
Let's see if your right foot is as fearless as your mouth.
— Doug Solter, Skid
Being brave meant that though you might be frightened, you would face the greatest danger if you knew it was the right thing to do.
— Anne Holm, Peter
Emily squared her shoulders and said simply, “I’m fine, I’m not really loving your social skills though. Don’t you know this is no way to start a conversation?” Emily’s mouth clamped shut at the expression on the monsters face.
— Nicole  Rae
I was a lot braver when I was eight.
— Claire Cook, The Wildwater Walking Club
I said I was afraid and she told me to think about a time I felt brave and take that feeling into the situation with me. It worked. It helped.”Corinne leaned away from the Plexiglas, horrified.“Of course, since that time, I’ve learned much more about the technique,” her mother said. “I’ve learned to make it much more elegant, but the basics are still the same. Take that old calm, confident feeling with you into the new situation. I used it or a variant of it with clients all the time.” She knit her eyebrows, looking hard at Corinne. “I used it for evil during the kidnapping,” she said. “Now you can use it for good.
— Diane Chamberlain, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes
Bravery and Stupidity are the same thing, the outcome determines your label.
— Hayden Sixx
In such a beast as this..." (he means the army)"...it was the collective power that went, collapsing like a long-exhausted animal, at once falling under its own weight as much as that of its enemy. It was a collective death and not a matter of bravery or even strength, and once it was down it was finished as a battle.
— Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things
Be calm, be brave, it'll be okay.
— Guster
But think about it. We’ve tried for over twenty years to do everything right, to save our money, to pay our bills, to raise our kid, and to live within the law. We’ve done everything the right way, at least to the best of our ability.” Rick grabbed her hand. “But that’s not enough. That guy is right about at least that much. He’s giving us a chance to do something that will lash out, and he’s willing to pay for it. I can see the sincerity all over his face. He’s not trying to con us. He just wants an ally, a foot soldier.” “Why you?” Renee asked bluntly. “Is it that hard to find someone crazy enough to do something that extreme?” She caught herself and started laughing. “Maybe it is.
— Rich Hoffman
To conclude this personal note, I, William Joyce, will merely say that I left England because I would not fight for Jewry against the Führer and National Socialism, and because I believe most ardently, as I do today, that victory and a perpetuation of the old system would be an incomparably greater evil for [England] than defeat coupled with a possibility of building something new, something really national, something truly socialist.
— Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce)
I'll get there, if I leave everything but my bones behind," said Sam. "And I'll carry Mr. Frodo up myself, if it breaks my back and heart.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
She kept walking. The very small, brave part of her brain knew that this would be her one chance. If she turned around, she would lose it.
— Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Lena, listen to me, okay? We don't have much more time here. You are in love. I've never seen anything like this before. You have to be brave, okay? You have to go and tell Kostos how you feel. I swear to God if you don't, you will regret it for the rest of your cowardly life.''What if he doesn't like me back?''That's what I mean about being brave.
— Ann Brashares
He who is a firstling is ever sacrificed.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Genuine bravery occurs when you least expect it, and when, in fact, you're quite oblivious of it.  Sometimes heroism happens when you press on; other times when you let go.  Once in a while, it happens when you do a little dance all your own.
— Gerald Hausman, The American Storybag
Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.
— Edgar Allan Poe
These are the times that try men's souls.
— Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
Sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right.
— Sherrilyn Kenyon
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.
— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so wel
— Anne Bradstreet, The Works of Anne Bradstreet
If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim.
— H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You
We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.
— Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
Sweet are the uses of adversityWhich, like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived. (The Inconvenient Messiah, BYU Speeches, Feb 15, 1982)
— Jeffrey R. Holland
It is in the whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.
— M. Scott Peck
All events are blessings given to us to learn from.
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.
— Abigail Adams, The Quotable Abigail Adams
It's essential you create a fiery will from within--harness that power of decisiveness--and choose to be your strongest self.
— Karen Salmansohn
My voice was a bare rasp of fear. "In the weaving room, the women say it's never been this bad before..." "They always say that when things get difficult," she answered softly. Then she sat up suddenly as though coming fully awake. Reaching down, she took my chin in her hand and tipped my face to look up at hers. "Remember, Gwen, no matter who says what, the important thing is to understand what needs to be done, and then do it. No matter how hard it is, or how much pain you feel. It's as simple as that, really. Once you know what you have to do, you just do it.
— Persia Woolley, Child of the Northern Spring
May your life be filled, as mine has been, with love and laughter; and remember, when things are rough all you need is ... Chocolate.
— Geraldine Solon, Chocolicious
Struggle is the food from which change is made, and the best time to make the most of a struggle is when it's right in front of your face. Now, I know that might sound a bit simplistic. But, too often we're led to believe that struggling is a bad thing, or that we struggle because we're doing something wrong. I disagree. I look at struggle as an opportunity to grow. True struggle happens when you can sense what is not working for you and you're willing to take the appropriate action to correct the situation. Those who accomplish change are willing to engage the struggle.
— Danny Dreyer
We are like the herb which flourisheth most when trampled upon
— Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, which will 'turn the necessity to glorious gain.
— C.S. Lewis
Until you have stood in another woman’s stilettos, you will never begin to know the year of pain she felt breaking them in.
— Shannon L. Alder
Some people make a bad bed, they just have to lie in it.
— Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade
We live in a day when the adversary stresses on every hand the philosophy of instant gratification. We seem to demand instant everything, including instant solutions to our problems. . .It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal.
— Boyd K. Packer
Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.
— Joseph B. Wirthlin
I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.
— Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters
If you fall-and trust me, you will- make sure you fall on your back. Because if you fall on your back, you can see up. And if you can see up, you can get up. And you can keep going and going and going.
— Hoda Kotb, Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee
Memories of the past year came tumbling down on me. The recent changes and reverses were almost overwhelming. I was learning that life flowed like a river. When the run-off was normal, the water ran smoothly. But if there came a downpour, it gushed. In the likeness to a flooding river, life events were caught up in the course of the devouring stream.
— Mary Margaret Jensen, Against the Grain
I have seen human beings who have forged "intellectual" armor to shield themselves from adversity. They seemed stronger than most. They said, "I couldn't care less," and laughed at everything, but when adversity managed to pierce their armor, it caused terrible damage.I have seen human beings suffer from the slightest adversity, the slightest annoyance, but still remain open-minded and sensitive to everything, learning something from each attack.
— Bernard Werber, Empire of the Ants
I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail.
— Ricky Skaggs
It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.
— Bruce Barton
Regardless of the situation, don’t let the bastards win … and have no regrets … for it will be a good day!-Richard Wakinyan (Martian Fleet Commander)
— R.G. Risch, Beyond Mars: Crimson Fleet
A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.
— Helen Keller
Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.
— Billy Graham
If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?
— Thomas à Kempis
The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.
— Horace Bushnell
Difficulties are what makes it honorable and interesting to be alive.
— Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
— Solon
Those doves below, the ones utterly cared for, never endangered ones, cannot know tenderness.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
Some people is born at the start of a long hard row to hoe. Well, I am older than God's dog and been in this world a long time and it seems to me that right from the git-go, Larkin Stanton had the longest and hardest row I've ever seen.
— Sheila Kay Adams, My Old True Love
Always be in command of your music. If life throws you a few bad notes or vibrations, don't let them interrupt or alter your song.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Friction is necessary. Ease of life leads to complacency and the atrophy of the human will and spirit. Within our struggles lives our strength, within our trials lives our triumphs. Friction creates a platform for change, generates heat and or fervor and creates a motivational charge that gives us an opportunity to be better. A gem cannot be polished without friction and so neither a person without hardships. Friction within and friction without sharpens our senses and revives our internal resolutions. Friction is uncomfortable, hardships are distressing but both are necessary. We cannot light a match without friction nor can we hone steal. Uncomfortable as it may be, our adversity ultimately lights a fire and sharpens our very will to flourish. Today, let us not be discouraged, let us not be bitter in our suffering rather let us be encouraged as we look to our trials as a medium that will eventually make us better.
— Jason Versey, A Walk with Prudence
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
— Abraham Lincoln
by indignities men come to dignities
— Francis Bacon
You are unfortunate in my judgment, for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through life with no antagonist to face you; no one will know what you were capable of, not even you yourself.
— Seneca
Screw it. Bring on that sorry dragon!Comes down to it, I'll bet Hrundig knows a recipe for cooking the mangy beasts.
— Eric Flint, The Philosophical Strangler
Adversity is the mother of prosperity
— Tare Munzara
You can’t take credit for what you do when your back is against the wall.
— Tana French
I had long believed adversity was the greatest teacher, but I learnt that nothing teaches you more about life than death.
— Alex Staniforth
There is a kind of transaction that occurs between a person and a place: you give the place something and it gives you something in return. In years to come, Hodel would know for certain not only what Nerchinsk had taken, but what it had given her as well.
— Alexandra Silber, After Anatevka: A Novel Inspired by Fiddler on the Roof
Brotherhood is born in adversity.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Adversity is neither friend nor foe. It is a common acquaintance that is desired less and rewarded most when embraced.
— Carolyn Wells
The birth and growth of modern antisemitism has been accompanied by and interconnected with Jewish assimilation, the secularization and withering away of the old religious and spiritual values of Judaism. What actually happened was that great parts of the Jewish people were at the same time threatened by physical extinction from without and dissolution from within. In this situation, Jews concerned with the survival of their people would, in a curious and desperate misinterpretation, hit on the consoling idea that antisemitism, after all, might be an excellent means for keeping the people together so that the assumption of external antisemitism would even imply an external guarantee of Jewish existence. This superstition, a secularized travesty of the idea of eternity inherent in a faith in chosenness and a Messianic hope, has been strengthened through the fact that for many centuries the Jews experienced the Christian brand of hostility which was indeed a powerful agent of preservation, spiritually as well as politically. The Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred—and this all the more innocently because their assimilation had by-passed Christianity in its religious and cultural aspect. Confronted with an obvious symptom of the decline of Christianity, they could therefore imagine in all ignorance that this was some revival of the so-called "Dark Ages." Ignorance or misunderstanding of their own past were partly responsible for their fatal underestimation of the actual and unprecedented dangers which lay ahead. But one should also bear in mind that lack of political ability and judgment have been caused by the very nature of Jewish history, the history of a people without a government, without a country, and without a language. Jewish history offers the extraordinary spectacle of a people, unique in this respect, which began its history with a well-defined concept of history and an almost conscious resolution to achieve a well-circumscribed plan on earth and then, without giving up this concept, avoided all political action for two thousand years. The result was that the political history of the Jewish people became even more dependent upon unforeseen, accidental factors than the history of other nations, so that the Jews stumbled from one role to the other and accepted responsibility for none.
— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Attack and adversity contribute to national cohesion in a way that success and affluence do not
— Jan Dalley, The Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire
If you wish to overcome any difficulty, resolved to endure adversity.
— Lailah Gifty Akita