Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;The valiant never taste of death but once.

I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.

Complete courage and absolute cowardice are extremes that very few men fall into. The vast middle space contains all the intermediate kinds and degrees of courage; and these differ as much from one another as men’s faces or their humors do.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious; because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation; whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies; but a great deal more to stand up to your friends...

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

It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.

The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.