Moral Courage Quotes

As regards moral courage, then, it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as that they suppress it firmly.

Moral courage is the highest expression of humanity.

The public is tired of politicians professing certain beliefs and not acting on those beliefs. They want elected officials who have the moral courage to do what they will say they will do when they're running for election.

In America, the traditional routes to black identity have hardly been normal. Suicide (disappearance by imitation, or willed extinction), violence (hysterical religiosity, crime, armed revolt), and exemplary moral courage; none of these is normal.

Here's an experiment: For one whole day think, speak, and act exactly as you would if you were absolutely convinced of the truth of the statements that God has all power and infinite intelligence, and that His nature is infinite goodness and love. To think in this manner all day will be the most difficult thing, because thought is so subtle. To speak in accordance with these truths will be easier, if you are vigilant. To act in accordance with them will be the easiest part, although it may require much in the way of moral courage.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk.

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

When moral courage feels that it is in the right, there is no personal daring of which it is incapable.

The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.

The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

Everybody Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. It springs from a consciousness of virtue and renders a man, in the pursuit or defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition, or contempt.

I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test.

It seemed incredible to me, that physical courage should be so commonplace and revered, while moral courage . . . is so rare and despised.

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgement and decision.

What we dedicate today is not a memorial to war, rather it's a tribute to the physical and moral courage that makes heroes out of farm and city boys and that inspires Americans in every generation to lay down their lives for people they will never meet, for ideals that make life itself worth living.

It is a great thing to see physical courage, and greater still to see moral courage, but the greatest to see of all is spiritual courage; oh, to see a person who will stand true to the integrity of Jesus Christ no matter what he or she goes through!

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

Moral courage is more a rare commodity than bravery in a battle or great intelligence.

The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.

When I today ask myself whence I got the moral courage, for it takes moral courage to make a move (or form a plan) running counter to all tradition, I think I may say in answer, that it was only my intense preoccupation with the problem of the blockade which helped me to do so.

If you feel your value lies in being merely decorative, I fear that someday you might find yourself believing that’s all that you really are. Time erodes all such beauty, but what it cannot diminish is the wonderful workings of your mind: Your humor, your kindness, and your moral courage. These are the things I cherish so in you. I so wish I could give my girls a more just world. But I know you’ll make it a better place." -- Marmee, Little Women

None of us can hope to get anywhere without character, moral courage and the spiritual strength to accept responsibility.

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

Some jobs require a more consistent challenge to moral courage than others. Politics is one. In such a setting terrifically good men and women will still be found wanting occasionally. No one does the right thing all the time. It would be more generous and fair to consider their batting average than to judge them only by their last worst act.

Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

No matter how brilliant a man may be, he will never engender confidence in his subordinates and associates if he lacks simple honesty and moral courage.

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, "One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door." The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: "What were you thinking; why didn't you act?" Or they will ask instead: "How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?

Moral courage, to me, is much more demanding than physical courage.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

Bravery hides in amazing places.

At last an authentic voice from Saudi Arabia. Al-Mohaimeed has written a remarkable, rhythmic, genuine novel. Wolves of the Crescent Moon throbs with sensuality and moral courage, as if it didn't take place in a society that denies the tick of the heart.

Black! Black! Black! I am proud of being a Negro. Nor have I ever tried to beg tolerance from anyone. Superiority is not proved by color, but by the brain, by education, by willpower, by moral courage.

We must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors. As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; We will not surrender for it, now or ever. We are Americans.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

In this work I have received the opposition of a number of men who only advocate the unobtainable because the immediately possible is beyond their moral courage, administrative ability, and their political prescience.

Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use.

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, 'I was wrong'.

An undertaking of great magnitude and importance, the successful accomplishment of which, in so comparatively short a period, notwithstanding the unheard of unestimable difficulties and impediments which had to be encountered and surmounted, in an almost unexplored and uninhabited wilderness . . . evinced on your part a moral courage and an undaunted spirit and combination of science and management equally exciting our admiration and deserving our praise.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Courage is not the absence of fear...

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.