Echoes

Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.

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

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

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

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.

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

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.

If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that "All abilities come from one mind" sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat.

He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence — they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all.

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

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.

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

He who is brave is free.

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

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.

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.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Happy is the man who hath the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepareth himself to die.

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

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.

I have heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck.

Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for man to go.