Skip to content

Quotes about courage and perseverance

Updated on How we verify quotes

An exam, a fresh start, an ordeal: these quotes about courage were chosen to encourage, and each one has been checked in its original text.

They are grouped by tone, from the short line to copy into a message to the longer reflection.

Contents

Inspiring

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part 2, chapter 44 (Amy), 1869 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

If, one day, the people will to live, then fate must answer.

Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi, “The Will to Live” (Songs of Life), opening line, 1933 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Resolutions come in the measure of the resolute, and noble deeds in the measure of the noble.

Al-Mutanabbi, Poem “In the measure of the resolute” (Diwan), opening line, panegyric of Sayf al-Dawla, 965 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Traveller, there is no road; the road is made by walking.

Antonio Machado, Proverbios y cantares, XXIX (Campos de Castilla), 1912 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken (Mountain Interval), 1916 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XXIII, 1847 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, Washington, 4 March 1865, 1865 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Conclusion, 1854 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, scene 2 (Cassius), 1599 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Short

If there is no struggle there is no progress.

Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation, speech delivered at Canandaigua, New York, 3 August 1857, 1857 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

English proverb
Create an imageImage

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Volume III, chapter 3 (the creature), 1818 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

The best way out is always through.

Robert Frost, A Servant to Servants (North of Boston), 1914 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series, “Self-Reliance”, 1841 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series, “Circles”, 1841 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XII (Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar), 1894 Verified quote
Create an imageImage

Frequently asked questions

How do I use these quotes to encourage someone?

Choose a short line, add a personal word (“thinking of you tomorrow”) and send it on the morning of the challenge.