Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.
Interpretation
Courage involves recognizing that something is more significant than the fear you feel.
This quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt emphasizes that true courage is not about being fearless, but rather about prioritizing values, goals, or duties that hold greater importance than the fear one may experience. It suggests that facing fears is an integral part of making decisions and taking action in life, as long as one is grounded in purpose.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech to inspire people facing their fears.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many.
Like my parishioner Congressman John Lewis, I believe that voting is a sacred undertaking, and we must keep marching until we secure the sacred right to vote for every eligible American.
The coward, afraid of the lash, with one hand wipes his eyes and gives with the other. Of what avail are such gifts?
Among many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, "The cannibals! you will be eaten by cannibals!" At last I replied, "Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms."
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.
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