Courage Quotes
No cowardly lions slinking around here.
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECTCourage Quotes
We wanna see you be brave. Click on any courage quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
""

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."Source: 80 million United States Postage stamps | Author: Maya Angelou

"A whole new world."Source: Aladdin | Speaker: Aladdin and Princess Jasmine

"Adrian!"Source: Rocky | Speaker: Rocky Balboa





"Anything worth dying for...is certainly worth living for."Source: Catch-22 | Author: Joseph Heller

"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"Source: Reservoir Dogs | Speaker: Mr. Blonde

"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."Source: Gone with the Wind | Author: Margaret Mitchell

"As long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together."Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth | Author: Jules Verne

"Be afraid. Be very afraid."Source: The Fly | Speaker: Veronica Quaife


"Because I was afraid of worms, Roxanne! Worms!"Source: Roxanne | Speaker: Chris McConnell


"Book 'em, Danno."Source: Hawaii Five-O | Speaker: Steve McGarrett

"Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—"Source: Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art | Author: John Keats

"Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise."Source: Still I Rise | Author: Maya Angelou

"Buongiorno, principessa!"Source: Life Is Beautiful | Speaker: Guido

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."Source: Brave New World | Author: Aldous Huxley

"But it does move."Source: Unknown | Speaker: Galileo Galilei


"Carpe… Hear it? Carpe… carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."Source: Dead Poets Society | Speaker: John Keating


"Come out, come out, wherever you are."Source: Cape Fear | Speaker: Max Cady

"Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?"Source: Dirty Harry | Speaker: Harry Callahan

"Do not call for Black power or green power. Call for brain power."Source: Campus Speeches, Quoted in the Chicago Tribune | Author: Barbara Jordan

"Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"Source: "Don't Cha" | Speaker: The Pussycat Dolls

"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"Source: Battle of Bunker Hill | Speaker: William Prescott

"Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did."Source: "I'm Still Standing" | Speaker: Elton John

"Do…or do not. There is no try."Source: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back | Speaker: Yoda

"Earn this. Earn it."Source: Saving Private Ryan | Speaker: Captain James Miller


"Excuse me while I kiss this guy."Source: "Purple Haze" | Speaker: Jimi Hendrix

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."Source: Coraline | Author: Neil Gaiman & G.K. Chesterton

"Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife."Source: Gladiator | Speaker: Maximus Decimus Meridius



"Give me liberty, or give me death!"Source: Virginia Convention in Richmond on March 20, 1775 | Speaker: Patrick Henry

"Go ahead. Make my day."Source: Sudden Impact | Speaker: Dirty Harry




"Happiness can be found in the darkest of times."Source: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Speaker: Albus Dumbledore

"Have a vision. Be demanding."Source: It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership | Author: Colin Powell

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."Source: Stanford Commencement Speech (2005) | Speaker: Steve Jobs

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"Source: McCarthy Hearings | Speaker: Joseph Welch

"He chose poorly."Source: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade | Speaker: Grail Knight

"He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick"Source: The Perfect Husband | Author: Ogden Nash

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."Source: Stars Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | Speaker: Princess Leia Organa


"Hey sista, go sista…"Source: "Lady Marmalade" | Speaker: Robert Crewe and Kenny Nolan


"Hope is the thing with feathers—That perches in the soul"Source: Hope Is the Thing with Feathers | Author: Emily Dickinson

"Houston, we have a problem."Source: Apollo 13 | Speaker: Commander Jim Lovell

"I ain't no hollaback girl."Source: Hollaback Girl | Speaker: Gwen Stefani

"I ain't so tough."Source: The Public Enemy | Speaker: Tom Powers

"I am Groot."Source: Guardians of the Galaxy | Speaker: Groot

"I am not afraid; I was born to do this."Source: Spoken as she left the town of Vancouleurs | Speaker: Joan of Arc

"I am the greatest!"Source: Spoken | Speaker: Muhammad Ali

"I am vengeance! I am the night! I am Batman!"Source: Batman: The Animated Series | Speaker: Batman

"I came in like a wrecking ball"Source: "Wrecking Ball" | Speaker: Miley Cyrus


"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."Source: The Wizard of Oz | Speaker: Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland)

"I don't think you ready for this jelly."Source: "Bootylicious" | Speaker: Destiny's Child


"I feel the need—the need for speed!"Source: Top Gun | Speaker: Peter "Maverick" Mitchell


"I have a head for business and a bod for sin."Source: Working Girl | Speaker: Tess McGill

"I have been starved out, felt up, teased, stalked, threatened, and called Taylor Swift."Source: Orange Is the New Black | Speaker: Piper Chapman


"I have not yet begun to fight."Source: Spoken on September 23, 1779 | Speaker: Captain John Paul Jones


"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing."Source: Moby-Dick | Author: Herman Melville



"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul | Author: Douglas Adams

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."Source: Spoken before his death | Speaker: Nathan Hale

"I put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it."Source: "Work It" | Speaker: Missy Elliot

"I said you wanna be startin' somethin', you gotta be startin' something."Source: "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" | Speaker: Michael Jackson

"I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice. Of a generation."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am."Source: The Bell Jar | Author: Sylvia Plath

"I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters—two beautiful, intelligent, Black young women—playing with their dogs on the White House lawn."Source: 2016 Democratic National Convention Speech | Speaker: Michelle Obama

"I wanna run through the halls of my high school."Source: No Such Thing | Speaker: John Mayer

"I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith




"I'm a smart, strong, sensual woman."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."Source: The Godfather | Speaker: Don Corleone

"I'm here to fight for truth and justice and the American Way."Source: Superman | Speaker: Superman

"I'm no hero. I put my bra on one boob at a time like everyone else."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?Source: I'm Nobody! Who are you? | Author: Emily Dickinson
Are you — Nobody — too?"

"I'm Spartacus!"Source: Spartacus | Speaker: Antonius


"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."Source: "Failure," a Nike TV Commercial | Speaker: Michael Jordan

"If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?"Source: "Kryptonite" | Speaker: 3 Doors Down

"If the apocalypse comes, beep me."Source: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Speaker: Buffy Summers

"Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."Source: Casablanca | Speaker: Rick Blaine

"In space, no one can hear you scream."Source: Alien | Speaker: Tagline

"In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart."Source: The Diary of Anne Frank | Author: Anne Frank

"Into the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred"Source: The Charge of the Light Brigade | Author: Alfred Lord Tennyson

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."Source: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Author: J.K. Rowling


"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."Source: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | Author: J.K. Rowling


"It's been a hard day's night."Source: "A Hard Day's Night" | Speaker: John Lennon and Paul McCartney

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."Source: Unknown | Speaker: Ella Fitzgerald

"Just keep swimming."Source: Finding Nemo | Speaker: Dory

"Keep the change, ya filthy animal."Source: Home Alone | Speaker: Kevin McCallister

"Kiss my grits!"Source: Alice | Speaker: Flo


"Let the sky fall. When it crumbles, we will stand tall."Source: "Skyfall" | Speaker: Adele

"Let's be careful out there."Source: Hill Street Blues | Speaker: Sergeant Phil Esterhaus

"Let's go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over."Source: Shaun of the Dead | Speaker: Shaun


"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"Source: The Wizard of Oz | Speaker: Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow

"Logic is no doubt unshakable, but it can't withstand a person who wants to live."Source: The Trial | Author: Franz Kafka

"Love is a battlefield."Source: "Love is a Battlefield" | Speaker: Pat Benatar

"Makes me that much stronger"Source: "Fighter" | Speaker: Christina Aguilera

"May the Force be with you."Source: Star Wars | Speaker: Han Solo

"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Speaker: Reverend Sykes

"Mr. Christian!"Source: Mutiny on the Bounty | Speaker: Captain Bligh

"My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."Source: Job 19:20 | Author: Job

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."Source: The Princess Bride | Speaker: Inigo Montoya

"My soul has grown deep like the rivers."Source: The Negro Speaks of Rivers | Author: Langston Hughes

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."Source: Speech to the House of Commons, August 20, 1940 | Speaker: Winston Churchill

"Nobody has ever escaped from Stalag 17. Not alive, anyway."Source: Stalag 17 | Speaker: Oberst Von Scherbach


"Not that there's anything wrong with that."Source: Seinfeld | Speaker: Jerry Seinfeld


"Oh, the things you can find if you don't stay behind!"Source: On Beyond Zebra! | Author: Dr. Seuss

"Our deepest fear is not that we are weak. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."Source: 1994 Inaugural Address | Speaker: Nelson Mandela

"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."Source: Marginalia | Author: Billy Collins

"Put the sword back into its place. All those who use the sword will die by the sword."Source: Matthew 26:52 | Speaker: Jesus

"Real courage is [...] when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee

"Remember, you're fighting for this woman's honor, which is probably more than she ever did."Source: Duck Soup | Speaker: Rufus T. Firefly

"Resistance is futile."Source: Star Trek: The Next Generation | Speaker: The Borg

"Run, Forrest, run!"Source: Forrest Gump | Speaker: Jenny Curran


"Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!"Source: 42nd Street | Speaker: Julian Marsh

"Shake it off."Source: Shake It Off | Speaker: Taylor Swift

"Shall we play a game?"Source: WarGames | Speaker: WOPR/Joshua

"Shane! Shane! Come back!"Source: Shane | Speaker: Little Joey

"Shine bright like a diamond."Source: "Diamonds" | Speaker: Rihanna

"Snakes...why'd it have to be snakes?"Source: Raiders of the Lost Ark | Speaker: Indiana Jones


"Space, the final frontier."Source: Star Trek | Speaker: Narrator

"Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation."Source: My Life with Martin Luther King Jr. | Author: Coretta Scott King

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."Source: Up from Slavery: An Autobiography | Author: Booker T. Washington

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"Source: Planet of the Apes | Speaker: George Taylor


"That's all."Source: The Devil Wears Prada | Speaker: Miranda Priestly

"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."Source: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Speaker: Buffy Summers



"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."Source: The New Yorker | Author: Hannah Arendt

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."Source: FDR's Inauguration Speech | Speaker: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"The pen is mightier than the sword."Source: Richelieu | Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on."Source: The Old Curiosity Shop | Author: Charles Dickens

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."Source: The Importance of Being Earnest | Author: Oscar Wilde

"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."Source: A Farewell to Arms | Author: Ernest Hemingway

"The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door."Source: True Detective | Speaker: Rust Cohle


"There's a light on in the attic."Source: A Light in the Attic | Author: Shel Silverstein

"There's no crying in baseball!"Source: A League of Their Own | Speaker: Jimmy Duggan

"They call me Mister Tibbs!"Source: In the Heat of the Night | Speaker: Detective Virgil Tibbs

"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"Source: Braveheart | Speaker: William Wallace

"They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end."Source: Psalm 107:27 | Author: Psalmist

"This is the people's war!"Source: Mrs. Miniver | Speaker: The Vicar

"This thing called love, I just can't handle it."Source: "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" | Speaker: Queen




"Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."Source: The Pride of the Yankees | Speaker: Lou Gehrig



"Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."Source: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"We are the champions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting 'til the end."Source: We Are the Champions | Speaker: Queen

"We don't need no badges."Source: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | Speaker: Dobbs


"We have met the enemy and they are ours."Source: Letter to William Henry Harrison | Author: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

"We just got to go on, that's all. That's what grownups would do."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding


"We shall never surrender."Source: We Shall Fight on the Beaches speech (June 1940) | Speaker: Winston Churchill

"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice."Source: "The Celebration of Negro History Week" in The Journal of Negro History | Author: Carter G. Woodson

"We're going to need a bigger boat."Source: Jaws | Speaker: Brody

"Well-behaved women rarely make history."Source: Marilyn Monroe | Author: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

"What I do have is a particular set of skills."Source: Taken | Speaker: Bryan Mills


"What you see is what you get!"Source: The Flip Wilson Show | Speaker: Geraldine Jones

"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there…"Source: "Drive" | Speaker: Incubus

"When we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full."Source: Exodus 16:3 | Author: Moses

"When you're reaching for a star, there's a long way to fall."Source: Roxanne | Speaker: C.D. Bales

"Wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there."Source: The Grapes of Wrath | Speaker: Tom Joad

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."Source: David Copperfield | Author: Charles Dickens


"With great power comes great responsibility."Source: Spider-Man | Speaker: Ben Parker


"Yas queen!"Source: Broad City | Speaker: Ilana Wexler

"You are beautiful, no matter what they say."Source: Beautiful | Speaker: Christina Aguilera

"You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything."Source: "Building a Dream" in Oprah Magazine | Speaker: Oprah Winfrey

"You better work."Source: "Supermodel" | Speaker: RuPaul

"You can call me green bean."Source: "Royals" | Speaker: Lorde

"You held me down, but I got up."Source: "Roar" | Speaker: Katy Perry

"You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life | Author: Eleanor Roosevelt

"You talkin' to me?"Source: Taxi Driver | Speaker: Travis Bickle

"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith

"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."Source: The Incredible Hulk | Speaker: Dr. David Banner

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."Source: Jaws | Speaker: Brody

"You're good. You're very good."Source: The Maltese Falcon | Speaker: Sam Spade


"You're so money and you don't even know it."Source: Swingers | Speaker: Trent Walker

"Zoinks!"Source: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! | Speaker: Shaggy