“God's will is often not done. We despoil rivers and lakes. We pollute land and air. We drive species into extinction. Given time we can do worse - or we can, by God's grace, do better. The late Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 - 1971), who was a wiser theologian than Senator Inhofe, urged us to pray for "the wisdom to distinguish between those things that can and those things that cannot be changed and for the courage to change those things that should be changed". Certainly the distinction between those things that can and those things that cannot be changed is an important part of the understanding scientists seek. What we all need is the courage to change those things that should be changed.”
Source: Seeing Physics: 2,600 Years from Thales to Higgs
“Laurel, David? Would you like to share the joke with the rest of the class?" he asked, one hand on his skinny hip.
"No, sir," David said. "But thank you for asking." The students around them laughed, but Mr. james didn't look pleased. Laurel leaned back and grinned. David, one. Teacher who wishes he was as smart as David? Zero”
Source: Wings
“Vulnerability begets vulnerability; courage is contagious.”
Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
“Courage is the name of the topological burning up of places and of interests, inasmuch as it is subordinated to the gesture of opening oneself up to becoming 'the most exposed', which is what allows one to 'sustain oneself'. ... This is because courage, the burnt precipitation (one has 'fired one's last rounds') in the excess over the place, promptly recomposes - beyond the destruction that it is - the subjective process of justice.”
Source: Theory of the Subject
“May you find the courage to carry on.”
“Daily strength,
Daily courage,
Daily resourcefulness,
Daily endurance.
That is all there is.”
“From this humiliating self-estimate (of cowardice) Gandhi escaped by substituting for the Englishman's courage, which begins in self-assertion and proceeds to physical mastery, the courage which begins with self-control and proceeds to the nonviolent affirmation of truth.”
Source: The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence 1942-1945
“Praying to be saved from danger,
Ain't no spineless coward I.
Let all the dangers hail my way,
Each crisis is like a trip to Hawaii.”
Source: Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo
“Ain't No Coward (Sonnet 1137)
Praying to be saved from danger,
Ain't no spineless coward I.
Let all the dangers hail my way,
Each crisis is like a trip to Hawaii.
Won't listen to no forbiddance,
Won't heed no foreboding.
None can sense the extent of my senses,
Night and day are my own making.
When all are eager for the sun to rise,
I grab the night and conjure up dawn.
Leave no corner of mindland unharvested,
Struggle isn't over till gloom turns to morn.”
Source: Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo
“Give me some sunshine,
Give me some rain!
Why the hell am I asking you,
When I'm the steward of my own reign!”
Source: Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo