William James Quotes

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

Often, what allows someone to behave heroically in dire circumstances is unpalatable in day-to-day life.

Heroes represent the best of ourselves, respecting that we are human beings. A hero can be anyone from Gandhi to your classroom teacher, anyone who can show courage when faced with a problem. A hero is someone who is willing to help others in his or her best capacity.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life, you don't get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.

I think on some level, that's a fear that exists in everybody, that if we're tested, we won't make the courageous choice. We won't make the decision that would make us heroic. We make the decision that would reveal us to be all too human.

I say that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he believes to be his highest duty.

People aren't universally heroic.

I think a lot of times when people play superheroes, they stick with this, 'I am a superhero,' but the truth is that we're all human, and that human quality is really important to bring.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

Originally, I thought the story of the Alamo was all these men defending their liberty when they could have left, knowing they were going to die. That's without a doubt what appealed to me, the romance and the nobility. But, as in life, the more you dig the more you find out that things weren't quite like that.

Individual courage is the only interesting thing in life.

This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance.

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

For all men would be cowards if they durst.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Courage is the most important of the virtues because it is the one that makes all the others possible.

I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.

A noble life, crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth..

Heroism means going out of bounds. In this world things must go out of bounds from time to time... No one can desire that the world continue to muddle along in every respect in the groove into which imperfect laws and even more imperfect behavior have pushed it. Without heroic intervention no Council of Nicaea, no dethronement of the Merovingians, no conquest of England, no Reformation, no revolt of the Netherlands, no free America. The thing that counts is who intervenes, how and in the name of what.

When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?