Brooke Foss Westcott Quotes

Circumstances do not determine a man, they reveal him.

When we read stories of heroes, we identify with them. We take the journey with them. We see how the obstacles almost overcome them. We see how they grow as human beings or gain qualities or show great qualities of strength and courage and with them, we grow in some small way.

I am always naturally drawn to heroines that have human flaws because I enjoy people that have lived their life with courage and make big successes and big failures.

What I hope my writing reflects... is a sense of the connections between all human beings... and a different perspective on the true nature of courage. For me, those are things worth exploring and writing about.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.

It's the trials and tribulations that really test a person, and coming through those difficulties is what shapes a person's character.

What I discovered is that there has always been a soldier inside me; I just didn't know it.

Courage is required not only in a person's occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.

I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.

There is no greater valor nor no sterner fight. He who would be what he ought to be must stop being what he is.

Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.

My deep belief is that all of us have the same lifelong work: to learn honesty, courage, and love. To learn, in other words, how to be our best selves.

But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Hold holy your highest hope!

The warrior woman is filled with the courage, confidence, and inner strength to leave the past behind. She knows that there is no way to express herself fully when she is still carrying burdens that need to be released.

The great virtue of those who seek the spiritual path is courage.

To me I seem to be constantly growing. I must respond to varying conditions, yet remain changeless within.

We no longer need to show people being brave: instead, we can examine how they became brave. We can assume that they didn't start out that way. If we allow that they started out just like us, then their journey into courage becomes both more fascinating and more impressive.

You cannot let go of anything if you cannot notice that you are holding it. Admit your 'weaknesses' and watch them morph into your greatest strengths.

Do not let the hero in your soul perish.

No cowardice, no sin, no crime, no weakness - the rest will come of itself. . .

First find the man in yourself if you will inspire manliness in others.

To work on great material, what you really end up working on is yourself, your own humanity.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

If you battle monsters, you don't always become a monster. But you aren't entirely human anymore, either.