Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [181-200] of 220 Courage quotesCourage QuotesCourage Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Heretics were often most bitterly persecuted for their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness. Why can they not yield on so trifling a matter?~ Leo Shestov The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost.~ George Shultz As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people.~ Jeffrey R. Snyder Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? ... How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself?~ Jeffrey R. Snyder Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers.~ Jeffrey R. Snyder At what exact point, then should one resist the communists? ... How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: what would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if during periods of mass arrests people had simply not sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. ... The Organs [police] would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers ... and notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt.~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The authoritarian sets up some book, or man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason and private judgment to discover the truth... It takes the highest courage to utter unpopular truths.~ Herbert Spencer Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.~ Baruch Spinoza And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in all the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.~ John Steinbeck To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.~ Robert Louis Stevenson Illegitimati non carborundum. (Don't let the bastards grind you down.)~ General Joseph W. Stilwell So, as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants.~ Cornelius Tacitus Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.~ Tecumseh To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained -- who can say this is not greatness?~ William Makepeace Thackeray A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister… For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.~ Justice Clarence Thomas To be awake is to be alive.~ Henry David Thoreau The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage.~ Thucydides Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.~ Thucydides When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.~ Harry S. Truman Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print