Courage and Strength

Never discourage anyone.. who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Let him take heart who does advance, even in the smallest degree.

He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

Courage is a kind of salvation. Courage is knowing what not to fear.

One ought not to be obstinate, except when one ought to be; but when one ought to be, then one ought to be unshakable.

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world . . . would do this, it would change the earth.

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.

A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls.

One defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one’s intelligence.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow.

Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

Enthusiasm is the great hill-climber.

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

What molting time is to birds, so adversity or misfortune is . . . for us humans.

Adversity in immunological doses has its uses; more than that crushes.