Life's journey is not traveled on a freeway devoid of obstacles, pitfalls, and snares. Rather, it is a pathway marked by forks and turnings. Decisions are constantly before us. To make them wisely, courage is needed: the courage to say, 'No,' the courage to say, 'Yes.' Decisions do determine destiny. The call for courage comes constantly to each of us. It has ever been so, and so shall it ever be.
Sta come torre ferma, che non crolla
Giammai la cima per soffiar de' venti.
Be steadfast as a tower that doth not bend its stately summit to the tempest's shock.
Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.
Courage multiplies the chances of success by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing itself of them; and in this sense Fortune may be said to favor fools by those who, however prudent in their opinion, are deficient in valor and enterprise.
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Men are so charmed with valor that they have pleased themselves with being called lions, leopards, eagles and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations.