Sunday, December 30, 2012

To Live By the Sword


The Keenest Blade is Forged in the Hottest Fire.

Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, injury or intimidation. There are different kinds of courage. There is physical courage, the ability to persevere in the face of physical pain, effort, hardship, injury or death, or threat of death.  And there is moral courage,  the ability to act rightly in the face of social pain, hardship, injury or death -- popular opposition, embarrassment, shame, scandal, discouragement, ridicule, or retaliation.  Moral courage is perhaps the rarest and most challenging kind of courage there is.
Just as you can get stronger by progressively lifting heavier and heavier weights, you can cultivate courage by progressively facing greater and greater fear, pain, or intimidation.
You cannot become stronger by lifting weights that are easily within your current capacity, nor can you become more courageous by remaining in your current “comfort zone.”
You must continually challenge your body in order to grow stronger. And you must continually defy fear and pain and ridicule in order to become more courageous.
Courage is not the absence of fear.
It is the conquest of it.

aac


Friday, December 28, 2012

To Live By the Sword...

...Means never surrender.
   Never.


aac

Sunday, December 23, 2012

To Live by the Sword




And each man stands with his face in the light. 
Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.
 
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Monday, December 10, 2012

Unlocking the Hero in Your Heart




Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back.
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 incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Begin it now.

-- Goethe