Courage and fear, two sides of one universal coin.
Fear can keep us disconnected from our Higher Self, from joy, from others, from life.
It creates and feeds our doubts, can trap us in hopelessness, keeps our dreams out of reach,
makes us cling when we should trust and let go, and lash out when we should embrace.

Courage is a light that shines within all of us, illuminating the dark shadows where our fears live.
It inspires us to face those fears, move through them, and come out on the other side
with more power, compassion and wisdom than before.
Courage enables you to live an authentic life, to do what you came forth to do,
to share your gifts... and to follow your heart.

May these quotes about courage and faith - and their shadow sides, fear and doubt - help lift you
above your own fears and self-doubts,
inspiring you to be true to yourself and shine your own light on the world.

Namaste.

Courage is being scared to death -- and saddling up anyway.
- John Wayne

I have accepted fear as part of life -- specifically the fear of change.
I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says turn back.
- Erica Jong

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
- Anaïs Nin

Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies
in the love we have not given,
the powers we have not used,
the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain,
misses happiness as well.
- Mary Cholmondeley

Fear is just another story with which we distract ourselves.
- Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfeld, "Seeking the Heart"

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

To be driven by fear is like dying inside.
- Sharon Salzberg

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards;
they simply unveil them to the eyes.
Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak,
and at last some crisis shows us what we have become.
- Bishop Westcott

The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.
- Shakti Gawain

He who loses wealth loses much;
he who loses a friend loses more;
but he who loses his courage loses all.
-Miguel de Cervantes

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Everything that is worthwhile in life is scary...if it is not fearful, it is not worthwhile.
- Paul Tornier

To fight fear, act. To increase fear - wait, put off, postpone.
David J. Schwartz

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair.
We'd never have a friendship.
We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical.
Well, that's nonsense.
You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
- Ray Bradbury

Ships in harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
- John Shedd

It's not because things are difficult that we don't dare ~
it's when we don't dare that things become difficult.
- unknown

Risk! Risk anything!
Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices.
Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
- Katherine Mansfield

Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.
- Sylvia Robinson

Real fearlessness is the product of our tenderness.
It comes from letting the world tickle your raw and beautiful heart.
- Rinpoche Chogyam Trungpa

Whatever you fear most has no power - it is your fear that has the power.
The thing itself cannot touch you.
But if you allow your fear to seep into your mind and overtake your thoughts,
it will rob you of your life.
- Oprah Winfrey

Fear builds walls to bar the light.
- Baal Shem Tov

If you hear a voice within you say, "you cannot paint," then by all means paint,
and that voice will be silenced.
- Vincent Van Gogh

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely
under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell

It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
-e.e. cummings

Be daring, be different, be impractical,
be anything that will assert integrity of purpose
and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers,
the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.
- Sir Cecil Beaton

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conditions are never just right.
People who delay action until all factors are favorable
are the kind who do nothing.
- William Feather

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
- Bertolt Brecht

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe,
nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.
- Goethe

All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them.
Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble.
- William S. Halsey

You are destined to fly, but that cocoon has to go.
- Nelle Morton

Recognize that you have the courage within you to fulfill the purpose of your birth.
Summon forth the power of your inner courage and live the life of your dreams.
- Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.
- German proverb

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience
in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror,
I can take the next thing that comes along."
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I am not afraid of storms, for I have learned how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott

Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone: --
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.
- Lionel Gordon

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do,
but how we behave when we don't know what to do.
- John Holt

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
- Vincent Van Gogh

When you come to the edge of all the light you have,
and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown,
either there will be something solid for you to stand on...
or you will fly.
- Patrick Overton

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
- Jelaluddin Rumi

The uncertainty you feel inside is the doorway to wisdom.
- Deepak Chopra

We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life.
But we can decide what happens in us...
how we can take it, what we can do with it...
and that is what really counts in the end.
- Joseph Fort Newton

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.
- Marcus Aurelius

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
- Abraham Lincoln

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world
who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed
to free themselves from their own individual bondage.
- Bruce Barton

Make voyages! Attempt them! There's nothing else.
-Tennessee Williams

Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise,
risking more than others think is safe,
dreaming more than others think is practical,
and expecting more than others think is possible.
- unknown

There are moments when everything goes well, but don't be frightened.
- Jules Renard

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?"
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
When we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give to other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson (popularized by Nelson Mandela)

Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.
- Winston Churchill

Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty.
There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail.
- Navajo Song

There is one elemetary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too...
A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one's favor
all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material asistance
which no man would have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.
- Goethe

Courage does not always roar.
Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,
"I will try again tomorrow."
- unknown

~"Ashokan Farewell"~
by Jay Ungar
from Ken Burns' "The Civil War"

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