COURAGE.
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage—an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.
Great in itself, not praises of the crowd,
Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war, are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
Love and a Bottle: Dedication. G. FARQUHAR.
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere—"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die.
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
Morituri Salutamus. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
MACBETH. If we should fail,—
LADY MACBETH. We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail.
Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.
"Brave boys," he said, "be not dismayed,
For the loss of one commander,
For God will be our king this day,
And I'll be general under."
From the Battle of the Boyne. Old Ballad.
By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavor for defence,
For courage mounteth with occasion.
King John, Act ii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Danger knows full well
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.
Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Who sees him act, but envies every deed?
Prologue to Mr. Addison's Cato. A. POPE.
Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?—Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And fade him follow.
Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
"You fool! I tell you no one means you harm."
"So much the better," Juan said, "for them."
Don Juan. LORD BYRON.
The intent and not the deed
Is in our power; and therefore who dares greatly
Does greatly.
Barbarossa. J. BROWN.
False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan,
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Lochiel's Warning. T. CAMPBELL.