Defining Courage

Without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men … have lived. The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures—and that is the basis of all human morality…. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience—the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men—each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient—they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Profiles in Courage

courage

1. The quality of a confident character not to be afraid or intimidated easily but without being incautious or inconsiderate.

2. "A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before." —Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. "It takes a lot of courage to be successful in business."

4. The ability to do things which one finds frightening.

5. "Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it." - Mark Twain

6. "He plucked up the courage to tell her how he felt."

From Old French corage (French: courage), from Latin cor (“heart”). Distantly related to cardiac (“of the heart”), which is from Greek, but from the same Proto-Indo-European root. Wiktionary

Wikipedia: "Courage (also bravery, boldness, fearlessness, mettle, fortitude, or intrepidity) is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Courage is acting in spite of fear. "Physical courage" is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death, while "moral courage" is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement."

"In Roman Catholicism, courage is referred to as "Fortitude" as one of the four cardinal virtues, along with prudence, justice, and temperance. ("Cardinal" in this sense means "pivotal"; it is one of the four cardinal virtues because to possess any virtue, a person must be able to sustain it in the face of difficulty.) This is well expressed by Maya Angelou: "Courage is the most important of the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."'

You may want to see the Catholic Encyclopaedia entry on Fortitude.

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

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow. ~Mary Anne Radmacher

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

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius

A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage. ~Marvin Kitman

Coward: A man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts normally. ~Sultana Zoraya

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. ~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow. ~Dan Rather

Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains; some in desires, and some in fears; and some are cowards under the same conditions. ~ Plato, Laches

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared. ~Edward Vernon Rickenbacker

Courage is nine-tenths context. What is courageous in one setting can be foolhardy in another and even cowardly in a third. ~Joseph Epstein

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. ~Raymond Lindquist

"John F. Kennedy had long been interested in the topic of political courage, beginning with his senior thesis at Harvard. The thesis, later published as Why England Slept, was a study of the failure of British political leaders in the 1930s to oppose popular resistance to rearming, leaving the country ill-prepared for World War II.

Yet, in this book, Kennedy does not focus on physical courage, but moral and political courage. What do you think influenced John Kennedy's views on "courage"? He was - in 1955 - the sum of many things, as we all are. He was a war veteran with fairly severe ongoing injuries from that experience. He was the grandson of a political leader, and the son of a highly politically involved businessman. He was Catholic, the son of a very devout Catholic mother. He was a United States Senator, a brother, a husband. He lived in what then seemed like extremely perilous times. The world had already been engulfed in global war twice in his lifetime - twice in the previous 40 years - and now the most dangerous weapons ever created existed.

You might be interested in the types of courage demonstrated in sports of these times,

See the Roger Kahn book, The Boys of Summer.