Echoes

It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.

Audacity succeeds as often as it fails; in life it has an even chance.

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

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

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Take a step forward, lads. It will be easier that way.

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

You may never know what results come of your actions. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

For if he who resolveth bravely oftentimes falleth short, how shall it be with him who resolveth rarely or feebly?

We have a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is, of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that we cannot possibly solve it aright.

Through hardship to the stars.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

If you're afraid — don't do it. If you're doing it — don't be afraid.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them.