Kurt Tucholsky Quotes

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.

It is always easy to take a position when society agrees with you. It is hard to take a position that everyone else in society disagrees with.

It can be tough to stand alone for something you believe in.

Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it.

If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good.

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.

I, for one, love strength, daring, fortitude. I do not want people to kill the fight in them; I want them to fight for right things.

Rebellion is necessary for development of character.

The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one's own convictions - not obstinately or defiantly

Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows.

Never, for fear of feeble man, restrain your witness.

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

Courage is the greatest virtue because it guarantees all the rest.

Courage is, on all hands, considered as an essential of high character.

Acts of bravery don't always take place on battlefields. They can take place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and yes, your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.

Good is towing the line, being behaved, being quiet, being passive, fitting in, being liked, and great is being messy, having a belly, speaking your mind, standing up for what you believe in, fighting for another paradigm, not letting people talk you out of what you know to be true.

They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.

The man assumes the role of the loner, the thinker and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one was the courage to remain separate, th think through the truth and not be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power, whatever the cost.

Great saints are never wimps.

From long familiarity, we know what honor is. It is what enables the individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice. It is what enables the soldier to die alone, the political prisoner to resist, the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side street.

Courage is the rarest of all good traits

The public wants elected officials who have character. The public wants elected officials who are willing to stand up and say things, even if they don't agree with them.

When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted

Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day.

Even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it.