Ben Jonson Quotes

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

Courage is a virtue only so far as it is directed by prudence.

Fear looks like wisdom to those without risk.

If you don't have courage, you can't practice any of the other virtues.

Wisdom and courage make mutual contributions to greatness.

I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair.

Without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend.

Courage is the most important virtue because it is the hardest.

We should never so entirely avoid danger as to appear irresolute and cowardly; but, at the same time, we should avoid unnecessarily exposing ourselves to danger, than which nothing can be more foolish.

Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.

Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.

Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.

Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.

Don't be too brave. Bravery is a fine thing on some occasions, but sometimes it can be quite a dangerous thing. The stiff upper lip is not always the best.

Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth: If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.

The word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning "heart." Thus just as one's heart, by pumping blood to one's arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.

You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.

The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.