#oura

Why is contemporary China short of works that speak directly? Because we writers cannot speak directly, or rather we can only speak in an indirect way. Why does contemporary China lack good works that critique our current situation? Because our current situation may not be critiqued. We have not only lost the right to criticise, but the courage to do so. Why is modern China lacking in great writers? Because all the great writers are castrated while still in the nursery. ↗

— Murong Xuecun

#literature #courage

We awake at dawn. To sink or swim. ↗

— Kiera Woodhull

#courage

If the written word has contributed anything at all to our developing species and our half developed culture, it is this: Great writing has been a staff to lean on, a mother to consult, a wisdom to pick up stumbling folly, a strength in weakness and a courage to support sick cowardice. ↗

— John Steinbeck Journal of a Novel - The East of Eden Letters

#courage

And why should it not be terrifying? A little terror, in my view, is good for the soul, when it is terror in the face of a noble object. ↗

— Robertson Davies

#fear #courage

Yea ! by your works are ye justified--toil unrelieved ; Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the sending achieved ; Discipline, not of the feet but the soul, unremitting, unfeigned ; Tortures unholy by flame and by maiming, known, faced, and disdained ; Courage that suns Only foolhardiness ; even by these, are ye worthy of your guns. ↗

— Gilbert Frankau

#guns #soldiers #suffering #trenches #war

The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question. ↗

— Stephen Crane

#death #north #soldier #south #war

It is said that the compensation for the effort courage, tenacity, and endurance displayed during the journey was not happiness. Nor glory. What God offered as a reward was only rest. ↗

— Ingrid Betancourt

#courage

I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I'd done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible ↗

— Raoul Wallenberg

#humanitarianism #the-holocaust #world-war-ii #courage

Walk tall look the world in the eye. ↗

— Rhona Cameron

#courage

Every leader has the courage to make decisions. No decision is usually the worst decision. ↗

— Orrin Woodward

#courage #leader #courage