Courage "A Passport to Respect"

Many years ago, a statesman made these remarks in speaking before a learned society: “The truth is that physical courage has always been the most common place of virtues, …so that it has become an unfailing proof of decadence for any people to become hysterical over exhibitions of animal courage without regard to moral quality… Just the contrary is true of moral courage. [It] is among the rarest of virtues, and its services are of far greater value in the democratic ages than ever before. Indeed, the day may not be distant when the existence of law and order…may depend upon it. For that reason…the value of courage in a government by the majority can hardly be over-estimated…surely, if we are to find a bulwark of defense in our day of need, we ought to be now commending it by our example, showing how really brave men face grave problems…and set themselves…to finding the best possible solutions of them.”

There is a kind of courage which, Henry Ward Beecher said, is the “passport to respect”—the “courage of the wise” as distinguished from the “rash and foolish.” “True courage,” said Paul Whitehead, “is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.” Those are significant words. “The firm resolve of virtue and reason.”

Sooner or later in every person’s life there are likely to be pressures and persuasions to compromise personal principles, and each man must make up his mind what he will do with his principles under pressure. If he forever compromises, forever gives ground, he may find it the end that that he has run out of ground to give. Everyone has to stand with courage and conviction or lose respect, lose much of what makes him a man. “To see what is right and not do it,” said Confucius, “is want of courage.” Scripture says of this subject: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men.” “Be strong and of good courage.”

Shakespeare said it unforgettably in a single short sentence: “Screw your courage to the sticking place.” And he might have added, your principles and your convictions also.