Courage: Confront the Dark Parts of Yourself

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
― August Wilson

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
― Nelson Mandela

All happiness depends on courage and work.
― Honoré de Balzac

Don't be afraid of your fears. They're not there to scare you. They're there to let you know that something is worth it.
― C. JoyBell C.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
― Anaïs Nin

Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.
― Erica Jong

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.
― Maya Angelou

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.
― Nora Ephron

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

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
― Lao Tzu

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

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

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
― E.E. Cummings

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.
― Coco Chanel

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
- Atticus Finch
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.
― Maya Angelou

Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.
― William Faulkner

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that
something else is more important than fear.
― Ambrose Redmoon

A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.
― William G.T. Shedd

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
― Mark Twain

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.
― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym

With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.
― Margaret Mitchell

Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.
― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.

But sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.

That is the sort of bravery I must have now.
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

Freedom lies in being bold.
― Robert Frost

Courage is found in unlikely places.
― J.R.R. Tolkien

The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.
― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die