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.
Interpretation
Bravery involves protecting others rather than harming them and standing against fear-driven actions.
In this quote, Kirsten Gillibrand defines bravery not just as a lack of fear, but as the active choice to support and uplift vulnerable individuals rather than engaging in harmful behaviors such as greed, bullying, or spreading hatred. True courage, she argues, stands in stark opposition to fear and the negative consequences that arise when people act out of self-interest or permit division among one another.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about leadership qualities in challenging times.
In addition to being an economic security issue, the failure to pay women a salary that's equal to men for equal work is also a women's health issue. The fact is that the salary women are paid directly impacts the type of health care services they are able to access for both themselves and their families.
We'd certainly have paid leave already by now, we'd have equal pay, we'd have a living minimum wage - a lot of things would change having that diversity of opinion in Washington. We certainly wouldn't be debating whether women should have access to birth control.
when the fierce, burning winds blow over our lives-and we cannot prevent them-let us, too, accept the inevitable. And then get busy and pick up the pieces.
If in this supreme test, in face of which the braggart falls silent and every heroic gesture is paralyzed, a man walks straight up to the cause of his fear and is not deterred from doing that which is good -- which ultimately means for the sake of God, and therefore not from ambition or from fear of being taken for a coward -- this man, and he alone, is truly brave.
I knew someone had to take the first step. So I made up my mind not to move.
Thanks to every gay person in public and non-public life who has come out.
The coward, afraid of the lash, with one hand wipes his eyes and gives with the other. Of what avail are such gifts?
There were many factors as to why I decided to come out as being undocumented. One of them is because I look the way that I look; I don't look like the 'stereotypical undocumented' person.
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