Quotes about Boldness

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you committ through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

Be brave, be bold, be free.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!"

As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accursed An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.

How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.

He is a man of capacity who possesses considerable intellectual riches: while he is a man of genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the whole meaning of any object they have been looking at. Habit blinds them to some things: shortsightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine or unveil her Holy of Holies. It is only those whom she has filled with her spirit that have the boldness or the power to reveal her mysteries to others.

The Mask "Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes." "O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold." "I would but find what's there to find, Love or deceit." "It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, Not what's behind." "But lest you are my enemy, I must enquire." "O no, my dear, let all that be, What matter, so there is but fire In you, in me?"

The Dead-Beat He dropped, - more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; -Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; -Didn't appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. 'I'll do 'em in,' he whined, 'if this hand's spared, I'll murder them, I will.' A low voice said, 'It's Blighty, p'raps, he sees; his pluck's all gone, Dreaming of all the valiant, that aren't dead: Bold uncles, smiling ministerially; Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun In some new home, improved materially. It's not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun.' We sent him down at last, out of the way. Unwounded; - stout lad, too, before that strafe. Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, 'Not half!' Next day I heard the Doc.'s well-whiskied laugh: 'That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!'

It has been too much the custom to regard the earliest Christian books as written in a specially Christian form of speech, standing apart and distinguishable from the common language of the eastern Roman provinces. Had that been the case, it is not too bold to say that the new religion could not have conquered the Empire. It was because Christianity appealed direct to the people, addressed them in their own language, and made itself comprehensible to them on their own plane of thought, that it met the needs and filled the heart of the Roman world.

Ah, some love Paris, And some Purdue. But love is an archer with a low I.Q. A bold, bad bowman, and innocent of pity. So I'm in love with New York City.

Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

To Peter Carr, 1785: A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servility crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent, experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

On his bold visage middle age Had slightly press'd its signet sage, Yet had not quench'd the open truth And fiery vehemence of youth: Forward and frolic glee was there, The will to do, the soul to dare.

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."

Be bold in what you stand for and careful what you fall for.

Freedom lies in being bold.

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals of American society.

Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn, What dangers thou canst make us scorn!

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.

The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair though fear alone.

What! alive, and so bold, O earth?

The gods favor the bold.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,- A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.