Wise Words on Courage

"The Ladder"
Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.
Clare Boothe Luce

"How Strong?"
The measure of power is obstacles overcome.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke

"Take A Risk"
I have been assuming that the power and the motive behind taking risks for the cause of God is not heroism,
or the lust for adventure,
or the courage of self-reliance,
or the need to earn God's good will,
but rather faith in the all-providing, all-ruling, all-satisfying Son of God, Jesus Christ.
The strength to risk losing face for the sake of Christ is the faith that God's love will lift up your face in the end and vindicate your cause....
In this way risk reflects God's value, not our valor...
Every loss we risk in order to make much of Christ, God promises to restore a thousandfold with his all-satisfying fellowship.
John Piper

"Security Is Mostly Superstition"
Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
Helen Keller

"Like The Beaches of Normandy"
The rule for overcoming fear is to head right into it.
Anonymous

"Go The Distance"
Half measures can kill when on the brink of precipices...we cannot jump halfway across.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

"Deal With It"
All too frequently a problem evaded is a crisis invited.
Henry A. Kissinger

"Be Dead Center"
If you are walking in God’s ways, and things get messy, cheer up—you are on the verge of something wonderful. If you are walking in rebellion against God, and things are going great, heads up—you are on the verge of disaster. Of course, God in His mercy may turn your disaster into a day of salvation. But for myself, I prefer to endure the mess when I know I am dead center in the will of God.

What is the mess you are in right now? Hold on to God and be patient. The faithful servant can have confidence that things are going to turn out. Just look at Paul’s confidence: “I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance” (1:19).” How it all turns out is what’s important.
Andree Seu

"Blessed Are The Vertebrates"
Better to strengthen your back than to lighten your burden.
Anonymous

"Truly Brave"
The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes, and feel for what their duty bids them do.
Lord Byron

"Sail On, Sailor"
If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
St. Thomas Aquinas

"When Possible. Deal"
Better to deal with a problem than to cope with it.
Raymond P. Brunk

"Instead Imagine Conquering"
Cowardice...is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.
Ernest Hemingway

"Courageous Trepidation"
The brave man is the man who faces or fears the right thing for the right purpose in the right manner at the right moment.
Aristotle

"On The Worst Day Of Your Life"
Keep Calm. Carry On
Winston Churchill

"How To Conquer Fear"
I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him.
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Hang Tight"
Heroism is endurance for one moment more.
Unknown

"Valiant Efforts"
There are fights which should be made even if a loss is certain.
Frank Tollman

"The Sword of Peace"
O God, you gave us the grace
to carry the sword of your kingdom of peace;
and you made us messengers of peace
in a world of strife,
and messengers of strife
in a world of false peace:
make strong our hand,
make clear our voice,
give us humility with firmness
and insight with passion,
that we may fight,
not to conquer,
but to redeem.
Gregory Vlastos

"Bold As A Lion"
In crisis boldness is the safest course. Hesitation encourages the adversary to persevere, maybe even to raise the ante.
Henry A. Kissinger

"Fear Requires Permission"
Your fears can be overcome if you deal with them properly. Emotions come wholly from within, and have only the strength we allow them.
John Wilson

"Run With Horses. With God All Is Possible"
'If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?' (Jeremiah 12:5)

...The immediate residue...was a great soberness that came over me, a sudden shame and distaste for all the worthless kinds of joking I do, the petty things that seem so hard to forgive. The Lord’s words in Jeremiah are a heads-up to get more serious about life, to prepare myself for the days ahead. We prepare by living up to what we already know—the simple, garden-variety obediences of forgiving and generosity and being patient and saying no to ungodly passions.

I commented to a mature Christian friend of mine that he was brave for Christ. He told me that he looks at it this way: If we truly believe and embrace the fact that we are called to even die for Christ, then the little acts that fall short of dying are not such a big deal.

And like Jesus said, if we cannot be trusted with small things, who will trust us with the real riches (Luke 16:11)—such as the privilege of persecution for His name? And if we do not stand firm in our faith in a day of relative ease, how will we stand at all when the fiery testing comes (Isaiah 7:9)?


The signs all around us are worrisome. I wonder what kind of world my grandson will grow up in. I hope he will be ready to run with horses.
Andree Seu

"Through The Stormy Setbacks"
A great pilot can sail even if his canvas is rent.
Seneca The Younger

"Courage Expands Life"
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Anais Nin

"Familiarity = Confidence"
A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Risk For The Cause"
But not even Joshua could explode the myth of safety. The
people were drunk in a dream world of security. And they tried
to stone Caleb and Joshua. The result was thousands of wasted
lives and wasted years. It was clearly wrong not to take the risk
of battling the giants in the land of Canaan. Oh, how much is
wasted when we do not risk for the cause of God!...I have been assuming that the power and the motive behind
taking risks for the cause of God is not heroism, or the lust for
adventure, or the courage of self-reliance, or the need to earn
God’s good will, but rather faith in the all-providing, all-ruling,
all-satisfying Son of God, Jesus Christ. The strength to risk losing
face for the sake of Christ is the faith that God’s love will lift
up your face in the end and vindicate your cause...In this
way risk reflects God’s value, not our valor...Every loss we risk
in order to make much of Christ, God promises to restore a thousandfold
with his all-satisfying fellowship.
John Piper

"Find Your Voice"
Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A Thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular case.
Clarence Dorrow

“Who does nothing?”
Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable are the kind who do nothing.
William Feather

"It's Still About Territory"
In the New Testament, by the way, it is still all about Land. God’s zeal for expansion is not diminished. The concerns and promises of the Old Testament are spiritualized in the New. Woe to us if we think the days of territorial conquest are now over: The glory of God must cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. The sword is the gospel, the warrior are you and I.

The territory is also supposed to be passed down generationally today as before. Gains made for the kingdom must not be allowed to revert to the enemy camp. Yale was once a training center for revivalists. Now it is a launching pad from which to mock them.
Andree Seu

“Choose Your Battles”
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
Jonathan Kozol

"Thank You, Valiant Ones"
Let us make no mistake. All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you form all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil--every evil except dishonor and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it.

On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing. Some public opprobrium, yes, from people whose opinion you discount and whose society you do not frequent, soon recompensed by the warm mutual approval which exists, inevitably, in any minority group. For the rest it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love. It offers you time to lay the foundations of a career; for whether you will or no, you can hardly help getting the jobs for which the discharged soldiers will one day look in vain. You do not even have to fear, as Pacifists may have had to fear in the last war, that public opinion will punish you when the peace comes. For we have learned now that through the world is slow to forgive, it is quick to forget.
C.S. Lewis

"Go In"
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Andrew Jackson

"I Will Rise"
I am hurt but I am not slain! I will lie me down and bleed awhile—then I'll rise and fight again.
St. Barton's Ode.

"Falter Not"
When the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of midday, when the leg muscles quiver under the strain, the climb seems endless, and, suddenly, nothing will go quite as you wish—it is then that you must not hesitate.
Dag Hammarskjold

"Liberated"
Resolve, and thou art free.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Essential Vulnerability”
Don't call it faith if there's no vulnerability in it…You can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability...In the very same second I can be brave and scared...Vulnerability is the birthplace of everything we are hungry for---joy, faith, love, creativity...There is no intimacy without vulnerability.
Brene Brown

“Enjoy Uncertainty For Infinite Possibilities”
If you are able to live with uncertainty and even enjoy it and infinite possibilities open up in your life.
Tolle

“Find Your Moon”
If you want to change your life, be bold once again. Find your Moon. Chase something so big and exciting is unimaginable to you and those around you. Be brave enough to take action, test things out, fail, get up again, fail again, get embarrassed for trying, fail some more, get up again and smile, and keep moving. This is the stuff of courage, and the only approach to change that will fuel your charge and help your life truly Lift-Off.
Brendon Burchard

Repentance
"No Regrets?"
I regret nothing, says arrogance; I will regret nothing, say inexperience.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

"Think About It"
Reflection is the beginning of reform.
Mark Twain

"The Root Of The Problem"
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Henry David Thoreau

"Wiser Today"
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
Alexander Pope

"Pain Can Plant The Flag"
No doubt Pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.
C.S. Lewis

"A Time To Grieve"
The more grievous a man's sins seem to him, the readier God is to forgive them...They are annihilated as if they had never happened, if only the repentance be whole.
Meister Eckhart

"When Suffering Is Mercy"
Suffering is God's design in this sin-soaked world (Romans 8:20). It portrays sin's horror for the world to see. It punishes sin's guilt for those who do not believe in Christ. It breaks sin's power for those who take up their cross and follow Jesus...there is no greater joy than joy in the greatness of God. And if we must suffer to see this and savor it most deeply, then suffering is a mercy.
John Piper

"Lose No Experience"
Misfortune and experience are lost upon mankind when they produce neither reflection nor reformation.
Thomas Paine

"The Split Second"
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
Pearl S. Buck

"From Stone To Flesh"
Swords will be beaten into plowshares only after hearts of stone are changed into hearts of flesh.
Anonymous

"Laying Down Your Arms"
...fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death...If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen...
C.S. Lewis

"The Sooner The Better"
To-morrow I'll reform, the fool does say; To-day itself's too late; - the wise did yesterday.
Benjamin Franklin

"The Deep Work Of True Conversion"
When you come to Christ, He doesn’t just patch you up. He renews you. He doesn’t just salve your sins. He saves you. He doesn’t just reform you. He transforms you by His power. Conversion is a deep work. It goes throughout your entire being, throughout your mind, throughout the members of your body, throughout your life—your social life, your business life, your family life, your neighborhood life. You become a partaker of God’s nature.
Billy Graham

"God's Planting The Flag of Truth"
No doubt Pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.
C.S. Lewis

"You Are What You Do"
Personality change follows change in behavior. Since we are what we do, if we want to change what we are we begin by changing what we do, [and] must undertake a new mode of action.
Allen Wheelis

"Skip The Cover Up"
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them."
Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld

"From Bad To Worse"
Neglect mending a small Fault, and 'twill soon be a great One
Benjamin Franklin

"Retaining No Souvenirs of Hell"
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' - or else not. It is still 'either-or'. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in 'the High Countries'...But what, you ask, of earth?...I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
C.S. Lewis

"Progressive Or Pigheaded?"
We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.
C.S. Lewis

"Stop Dilly-Dallying"
I have developed a distaste for the word “struggling”—as in “I am struggling with anger” (or lust, or homosexuality, or a bad temper, etc.). It is a perfectly good word, and I know there are some people who are really “struggling.” But many other people are spoiling the word for everybody. They are using “struggling” to mean something more like “repeatedly giving in”—which is almost the opposite of “struggling,” seems to me.

I wonder what Jesus would say (will say) when we all come to give an account:

“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God, and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17)

When that day comes, Christ will ask each of his children if we “fought the good fight” and “kept the faith” and were workmen with no need to be ashamed (2 Timothy 2:15). The Word says:

“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:4).

The point is that you should.

So today on my prayer walk I had to repent of some dilly-dallying in a particular sin. I had to make up my mind to put to death the wavering (1 Kings 18:21) and to resolve, by God’s grace, to obey what I know his Word says.
Andree Seu