Bravery

Bravery is strength in the face of fear. It is similar to courage.

• I'll say this for the Queen. She was brave—or possibly stupid. It's easy to mistake the two.
  • Ben Aaronovitch, Foxglove Summer (2014), Chapter 16

• A brave man is one who admits his fear. Only a fool believes himself invincible.
  • Robert Asprin & Linda Evans, Ripping Time (2000), Chapter 10

• All doubt is cowardice — all trust is brave.
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, King Arthur (1848-9), Book XII, Chapter XXVIII.

• Brave men were living before Agamemnon.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto I, Stanza 5.

• The truly brave,
  When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,
  Are touched with a desire to shield and save:—
  A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods
  Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave,
  Now moved with pity; even as sometimes nods
  The rugged tree unto the summer wind,
  Compassion breathes along the savage mind.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto VIII, Stanza 106.

• Fortis vero, dolorem summum malum judicans; aut temperans, voluptatem summum bonum statuens, esse certe nullo modo potest.
  • No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.
  • Cicero, De Officiis (44 B.C.), I. 2.

• I wonder if this is what bravery is: adrenaline plus love plus absolute stupidity.
  • Katie Coyle, Vivian Apple at the End of the World (2013), ISBN 978-0-544-34011-4, p. 188

• It may often be noticed, the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odour of un-sanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave.
  • Dinah Craik, A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 11.

• Fortem Posce Animum
  Pray for God to give you a Brave Soul
  • Crampton Family Motto (1248)

• The god-like hero sate
  On his imperial throne:
  His valiant peers were placed around,
  Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
  (So should desert in arms be crowned).
  The lovely Thais, by his side,
  Sate like a blooming Eastern bride
  In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
  Happy, happy, happy pair!
  None but the brave,
  None but the brave,
  None but the brave deserve the fair.
  • John Dryden, Alexander's Feast (1697), Stanza 1.

• Quocirca vivite fortes, fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus
  • So live, my boys, as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
  • Horace, Book II, Satire II, Line 135-136 (trans. E. C. Wickham)

• Some of the bravest political work in this country and around the world has happened because people often too young to grasp their own mortality stick their necks out. The job of the rest of us is to rise to the occasion of their bravery. The young inspire the middle-aged and old with courage, and they project our vision where it belongs, into the future.
  • Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz “Nine Suggestions For Radicals, or Lessons From the Gulf War” in The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance (1992)

• Rewa was brave. At least, she was thick-witted enough to be able to ignore personal danger to a great extent.
  • Tanith Lee, East of Midnight (1977), Chapter 12

• There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck!
  A man who's not afraid to say his say,
  Though a whole town's against him.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus (1872), Part III. John Endicott, Act II, scene 2.

• Rebus in angustis facile est contemnere vitam;
  Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest.
  • In adversity it is easy to despise life; he is truly brave who can endure a wretched life.
  • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), XI. 56. 15.

• — How can a man be brave when he's afraid ?
  — It is the only time a man can be brave.
  • George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones, Chapter Bran (I).

• Arya watched them die and said nothing. What good did it do you to be brave? ... There were no brave people on that march, only scared and hungry ones.
  • George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Chapter Arya (VI)

• 'Tis more brave
  To live, than to die.
  • Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Lucile (1860), Part II, Canto VI, Stanza 11.

• I'm not a brave man. My self-image is of a very small and weak person. In point of fact, I'm almost six feet, and solidly built. But I was a late bloomer. I spent those formative early high-school years as a pudgy little science whimp. I'm still scared of big men with deep voices.
  • Rudy Rucker, The Sex Sphere, p. 13.

• Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
  From its firm base as soon as I.
  • Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto V, Stanza 10.

• He did look far
  Into the service of the time, and was
  Discipled of the bravest; he lasted long;
  But on us both did haggish age steal on
  And wore us out of act.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act I, scene 2, line 26.

• What's brave, what's noble,
  Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
  And make death proud to take us.
  • William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act IV, scene 15, line 86.

• Fortes et strenuos etiam contra fortunam insistere, timidos et ignores ad desperationem formidine properare.
  • The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone.
  • Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), II. 46.

• In the ebb and flow of battle there are usually only brief flashes of bravery before the brave become the dead.
  • Tade Thompson, One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sunlight in Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond (2013), ISBN 978-0-9891411-4-7, pp. 237-238

• Brave men don't belong to any one country. I respect bravery wherever I see it.
  • Harry Truman, as quoted in Truman (1993), by David McCullough, p. 646

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), pp. 82-83.

• Zwar der Tapfere nennt sich Herr der Länder
  Durch sein Eisen, durch sein Blut.
  • The brave man, indeed, calls himself lord of the land, through his iron, through his blood.
  • Ernst Moritz Arndt, Lehre an den Menschen, 5.

• Hoch klingt das Lied vom braven Mann,
  Wie Orgelton und Glockenklang;
  Wer hohes Muths sich rühmen kann
  Den lohnt nicht Gold, den lohnt Gesang.
  • Song of the brave, how thrills thy tone
    As when the Organ's music rolls;
    No gold rewards, but song alone,
    The deeds of great and noble souls.
  • G. A. Bürger, Lied von Braven Mann.

• How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
  By all their country's wishes blest!
  • William Collins, Ode written in 1746. Authorship disputed. Found in the Oratorio, Alfred the Great, altered from Alfred, a Masque, presented Aug. 1, 1740. Written by Thompson and Mallet.

• Les hommes valeureux le sont au premier coup.
  • Brave men are brave from the very first.
  • Pierre Corneille, Le Cid, II. 3.

• Toll for the brave!
  The brave that are no more.
  • William Cowper, On the Loss of the Royal George.

• The brave man seeks not popular applause,
  Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause;
  Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can,
  Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.
  • John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Book III, line 2,015. (1700)

• Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe:
  They took the spear, but left the shield.
  • Philip Freneau, To the Memory of the Brave Americans who fell at Eutaw Springs. (See also Scott—Marmion. Introd. to Canto III).

• The brave
  Love mercy, and delight to save.
  • John Gay, Fable, The Lion, Tiger and Traveller, line 33.

• Without a sign his sword the brave man draws,
  And asks no omen but his country's cause.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book XII, line 283. Alexander Pope's translation.

• O friends, be men; so act that none may feel
  Ashamed to meet the eyes of other men.
  Think each one of his children and his wife,
  His home, his parents, living yet or dead.
  For them, the absent ones, I supplicate,
  And bid you rally here, and scorn to fly.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book XV, line 843. Bryant's translation.

• Ardentem frigidus Ætnam insiluit.
  • In cold blood he leapt into burning Etna.
  • Horace, Ars Poetica.

• Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
  Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles
  Urguentur ignotique longa
  Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
  • Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but, all unwept and unknown, are lost in the distant night, since they are without a divine poet (to chronicle their deeds).
  • Horace, Odes, Book IV, IX. 25.

• True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.
  • La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 216.

• How well Horatius kept the bridge
  In the brave days of old.
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome, Horatius, 70.

• Audentem Forsque Venusque juvant.
  • Fortune and love favour the brave.
  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, Book I. 608.

• Omne solum forti patria est.
  • The brave find a home in every land.
  • Ovid, Fasti, I. 493.

• Audentes deus ipse juvat.
  • God himself favors the brave.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, X. 586.

• Who combats bravely is not therefore brave:
  He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle I, line 115.

• Dem Muthigen hilft Gott.
  • God helps the brave.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, I. 2. 132.

• Fortes fortuna adjuvat.
  • Fortune favors the brave.
  • Terence, Phormio, I. 4. 26. Quoted as a proverb.

• Bravery never goes out of fashion.
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, Four Georges, George Second.

• Audentes fortuna juvat.
  • Fortune favours the daring.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), X, 284 and 458. Same phrase or idea found in Cicero, De Finibus, III. 4. and Tusc., II. 4. Claudian, Ad Probin. XLIII. 9. Ennius, Annales, V. 262. Livy, Book IV. 37;, Book VII. 29;, Book XXXIV. 37. Menander, In Stobæus Flor., VII, p. 206. Ed. 1709. Ovid, Metamorphoses. X. 11. 27. Pliny the Younger, Epistles, VI. 16. Tacitus, Annales, IV. 17.
  • Ur.lizz** ~ Fearless

• Courage
• Valor