The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.
Anna QuindlenRead
Acts of bravery don't always take place on battlefields. They can take place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and yes, your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Bravery is not just about physical actions; it's about staying true to yourself.
This quote highlights that acts of bravery can occur in everyday life, especially when one chooses to follow their true self rather than conform to societal pressures. It emphasizes the importance of listening to one's inner voice and having the courage to honor one's own values and instincts, even amidst a world that might promote fear and timidity.
Themes
BraveryCourageSelf-HonorIntellectInner Voice
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech to encourage authenticity and self-acceptance.
More from Anna Quindlen
All quotes →The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you'd never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.
Anna QuindlenRead
I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.
Anna QuindlenRead
With reference to the younger generation..."If the experience of their exhausted, insomniac, dispirited elders makes them decide they'd prefer not to go straight from the classroom to the cubicle to the coffin, it doesn't mean they're lazy. It means they're sane."
Anna QuindlenRead
Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.
Anna QuindlenRead
I conveniently forgot to remember that people only have two hands, or, as another parent once said of having a third child, it's time for a zone defense instead of man-to-man.
Anna QuindlenRead
Similar quotes
It takes more courage to send men into battle than to fight the battle yourself.
Colin PowellRead
It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment's grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one's life.
ChanakyaRead
Brave doesn't spread hate or bully the vulnerable. Brave doesn't put greed and self-interest over millions of lives. Brave doesn't cower behind lies and walls. Brave doesn't pit people against one another. That's what fear does.
Kirsten GillibrandRead
Sometimes people ask me how difficult the astronaut program was, but being in Sierra Leone, being responsible for the health of more than 200 people, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at age 26 - that prepared me to take on a lot of different challenges.
Mae JemisonRead
Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.
Anna Julia CooperRead
Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.
Neil GaimanRead