Moral Courage Quotes

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

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

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”
― Frederick Douglass

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
― Desmond Tutu (Foreword)

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Good men don't become legends," he said quietly.
"Good men don't need to become legends." She opened her eyes, looking up at him. "They just do what's right anyway.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”
― Spencer Johnson

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
― Edward Abbey

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.”
― Andre Gide

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“If not us, then who?
If not now, then when?”
― John Lewis

“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.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Never do a wrong thing to make a friend--or to keep one.”
― Robert E. Lee

“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards of integrity. Maybe all you ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset.”
― John D. MacDonald

“Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody.”
― Justin Cronin, The Summer Guest

“If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless.”
― Chester Nimitz

“You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!”
― Abraham Lincoln

“What responsibility are you avoiding...
He wasn't avoiding responsibility...
Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn't change anything. If a man was cursed, or if he believed he didn't have to care, then he didn't need to hurt when he failed. Those failures couldn't have been prevented. Someone or something else had ordained them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“It is highly significant and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in such identification through one's own sensitivity with suffering of one's fellow human beings." (p. 16-17)”
― Rollo May, The Courage to Create

“From a distance,' he says, 'my car looks just like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she's going to get help, she'll get it from herself or she'll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn't know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven't found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.'

Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby's cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.

So,' Lemry says quietly, 'your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?'

Ellerby shakes his head. 'My subject will be shame.”
― Chris Crutcher, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes