"This is no time for ease and comfort...

It is a time to dare and endure." I am too young to have met Winston Churchill but I would have liked the man. His famous quote has been a mantra to me throughout most of my life and has given me the courage to take on the injustices of the world, when the thought of a comfy office and six figure income would have me seduced into silence.

The quotes below are among my favorites and are dedicated to those who are willing to forego poularity, personal wealth and the less complicated life in order to leave a legacy of something great.

Let me know which one resonates most with you.

1. "Above all we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.” - Ronald Reagan


2. "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win victories and triumph, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows no victory, nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt


3. "As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”- Nelson Mandella


4. “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.” - Dante


5. "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Morale courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, she/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” - Robert Kennedy


6. “We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers” - Carl Sagan


7. “He who loses wealth, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses more; He who loses courage, loses all.” - Cervantes


8. “The opposite of courage is not fear but conformity.” - Rollo May


9. "Courage is acting in spite of fear." - Howard W. Hunter


10. “It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and the courage enough to stand by his own convictions.” - Robert G. Ingersoll


11. “Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.” - Samuel Johnson


12. “When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, ‘til it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide will turn.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe