Great Throughts Treasury

"Discretion, the best part of valor." -

"Discretion and hardy valor are the twins of honor, and, nursed together, make a conqueror; divided, but a talker." -

"The mean of true valor lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

"The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honor. Valor is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Valor has its limits like the other virtues, and these limits once transgressed, we find ourselves on the path of vice; so that we may pass through valor to temerity, obstinacy, and madness, unless we know its limits well - and they are truly hard to discern near the borderlines." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Valor is stability, not of arms and of legs, but of courage and the soul." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Valor grows by daring, fear by delay." - Publius Syrus

"True valor is like honesty; it enters into all that a man sees and does." -

"The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow creatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him!" - Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

"True valor lies in the mind, the never-yielding purpose, nor owns the blind award of giddy fortune." - Edward Thomson

"Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor?" - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL

"In the whole range of human vision nothing is more attractive than to see a young man full of promise and of hope, bending all his energies in the direction of truth and duty and God, his soul pervaded with the loftiest enthusiasm, and his life consecrated to the noblest ends. To be such a young man is to rival the noblest and best of men in heroic valor." -

"Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor?" -

"Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

"Perfect valor is to do without witnesses what one would do before the whole world." -

"Valor would cease to be a virtue, if there were no injustice." - Agesilaus the Great NULL

"If men were just, there would be no need of valor." - Agesilaus the Great NULL

"Valor would cease to be a virtue, if there were no injustice." -

"If men were just, there would be no need of valor." -

"Fear to do base and unworthy things is valor; if they be done to us, to suffer them is also valor." - Ben Jonson

"No man can answer for his own valor or courage, till he has been in danger." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"What we take for virtues is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry know how to arrange; and it is not always from valor and from chastity that men are valiant, an that women are chaste." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Discretion is the better part of valor" - English Proverbs

"Valor and boastfulness never buckle on the same sword." - Japanese Proverbs

"How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go." - John Dryden

"Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from enemies." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL

"If all the world were just, there would be no need for valor." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL

"Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back." -

"Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptations we resist." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There is always safety in valor." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Valor consists in the power of self-recovery." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is a brave act of valor to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live." -

"The better part of valor is discretion." -

"Discretion and hardy valor are the twins of honor, and, nursed together, make a conqueror; divided, but a talker." - Beaumont and Fletcher, Francis Beaumont (c.1585-1614) and John Fletcher

"Discretion, the best part of valor." - Beaumont and Fletcher, Francis Beaumont (c.1585-1614) and John Fletcher

"True valor is like honesty; it enters into all that a man sees and does. " - Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek

"There is no greater valor nor no sterner fight. He who would be what he ought to be must stop being what he is." - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

"True valor lies half way between cowardice and rashness." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

"The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity; the heart of martial valor is true bravery, wisdom, love, and friendship. Emphasis on the physical aspects of warriorship is futile, for the power of the body is always limited. " - Morihei Ueshiba

"It may be observed that provinces, among the vicissitudes to which they are accustomed, pass from order to confusion, and afterwards pass again into a state of order. The way of the world doesn’t allow things to continue on an even course; as soon as they arrive at their greatest perfection, they again start to decline. Likewise, having sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they necessarily reascend. And so from good, they naturally decline to evil. Valor produces peace, and peace repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin. From ruin order again springs, and from order virtue, and from this glory, and good fortune" - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"The moral courage that will face obloquy in a good cause is a much rarer gift than the bodily valor that will confront death in a bad one." - Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith

"Approved valor is made precious by natural courtesy." -

"True, I am young, but for souls nobly born valor doesn't await the passing of years." - Pierre Cornielle

"Indeed, the crowning proof of their valor and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL

"My valor is certainly going! " - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

"The Trial By Existence - Even the bravest that are slain Shall not dissemble their surprise On waking to find valor reign, Even as on earth, in paradise; And where they sought without the sword Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, To find that the utmost reward Of daring should be still to dare. The light of heaven falls whole and white And is not shattered into dyes, The light for ever is morning light; The hills are verdured pasture-wise; The angel hosts with freshness go, And seek with laughter what to brave;— And binding all is the hushed snow Of the far-distant breaking wave. And from a cliff-top is proclaimed The gathering of the souls for birth, The trial by existence named, The obscuration upon earth. And the slant spirits trooping by In streams and cross- and counter-streams Can but give ear to that sweet cry For its suggestion of what dreams! And the more loitering are turned To view once more the sacrifice Of those who for some good discerned Will gladly give up paradise. And a white shimmering concourse rolls Toward the throne to witness there The speeding of devoted souls Which God makes his especial care. And none are taken but who will, Having first heard the life read out That opens earthward, good and ill, Beyond the shadow of a doubt; And very beautifully God limns, And tenderly, life’s little dream, But naught extenuates or dims, Setting the thing that is supreme. Nor is there wanting in the press Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth. The tale of earth’s unhonored things Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun; And the mind whirls and the heart sings, And a shout greets the daring one. But always God speaks at the end: ’One thought in agony of strife The bravest would have by for friend, The memory that he chose the life; But the pure fate to which you go Admits no memory of choice, Or the woe were not earthly woe To which you give the assenting voice.’ And so the choice must be again, But the last choice is still the same; And the awe passes wonder then, And a hush falls for all acclaim. And God has taken a flower of gold And broken it, and used therefrom The mystic link to bind and hold Spirit to matter till death come. ‘Tis of the essence of life here, Though we choose greatly, still to lack The lasting memory at all clear, That life has for us on the wrack Nothing but what we somehow chose; Thus are we wholly stripped of pride In the pain that has but one close, Bearing it crushed and mystified." - Robert Frost

"The world is full of signals that we don't perceive. Tiny creatures live in a different world of unfamiliar forces. Many animals of our scale greatly exceed our range of perception for sensations familiar to us… What an imperceptive lot we are. Surrounded by so much, so fascinating and so real, that we do not see (hear, smell, touch, taste) in nature, yet so gullible and so seduced by claims for novel power that we mistake the tricks of mediocre magicians for glimpses of a psychic world beyond our ken. The paranormal may be a fantasy; it is certainly a haven for charlatans. But parahuman powers of perception lie all about us in birds, bees, and bacteria." - Stephan Jay Gould

"I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"Lead thine own captivity captive, and be Cæsar within thyself." - Thomas Browne, fully Sir Thomas Browne

"To me, today, at age sixty-one, all prayer, by the humble or highly placed, has one thing in common: supplication for strength and inspiration to carry on the best human impulses which should bind us together for a better world. Without such inspiration, we would rapidly deteriorate and finally perish. But in our troubled time, the right of men to think and worship as their conscience dictates is being sorely pressed. We can retain these privileges only by being constantly on guard and fighting off any encroachment on these precepts. To retreat from any of the principles handed down by our forefathers, who shed their blood for the ideals we still embrace, would be a complete victory for those who would destroy liberty and justice for the individual." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney