A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Affected Am Bonaparte Cheerful Clock Courage Does Early Front Front Line Frozen Go Half Heroism Hour Inhabit Iron Less Line Men Merely Morning Only Plow Quarters Rarest Rest Sleep Sleeps Snow Steady Stood Stood Up Storm Than Thought Three Up Valor Vista Which Whose Winter

Quote Author

Henry David Thoreau
American - Author
July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.

Henry David Thoreau

Seize the opportunities life has to offer you. Embrace the changes, and have the courage to travel on roads less travelled, even though what is in front of you could be tough, make it successful. Have determination and courage to kick down the brick walls in front of you, and to go on and achieve bigger success than you ever thought possible.

Li Cunxin

I can never understand why I should eat at one or sleep at eleven, if it is, as it often is, my one and my eleven and nobody else's. For, as between the clock and me alone, one and eleven and all other o'clocks are mine and I am not theirs. But I have known men and women living in hotels who would interrupt a sunset to go to dine, or wave away the stars in their courses to go to sleep, merely because the hour had struck.

Zona Gale

Putting my hand in someone else’s has always been my definition of happiness. Before I fall asleep, often - in that small struggle not to lose consciousness and go into the greater world - often, before I get up the courage to go into the vastness of sleep, I pretend that someone has my hand in theirs, and then I go, go to that enormous absence of form that is sleep. And when even after that I don’t have courage, I dream.

Clarice Lispector

Take courage and work on. Patience and steady work - this is the only way. Go on; remember - patience and purity and courage and steady work. . . . So long as you are pure, and true to your principles, you will never fail.

Swami Vivekananda

Courage has become Raiders of the Lost Ark, or riding in spaceships, killing people, taking enormous physical risks. To me, the kind of courage that's really interesting is someone whose spouse has Alzheimer's and yet manages to wake up every morning and be cheerful with that person and respectful of that person and find things to enjoy even though their day is very, very difficult. That kind of courage is really undervalued in our culture.

Mary Pipher

You need courage to be creative. You need the courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone, if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.

Jim Rohn

What we really need the poet's and orator's I help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious courage which Robert Shaw showed when he marched with you, men of the Seventh Regiment. It is that more lonely courage which he showed when he dropped his warm commission in the glorious Second to head your dubious fortunes, negroes of the Fifty-fourth. That lonely kind of courage (civic courage as we call it in times of peace) is the kind of valor to which the monuments of nations should most of all be reared.

William James

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgement and decision.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Sometimes I train in the middle of the night, all on my own. Can't sleep, don't want to sleep, get up, go to the gym, work. This is early for me, being here at half ten in the morning, this is really early, and I'm only here because I screwed up yesterday and kept you hanging around. Other times I'll call up my wrestling coach, or my jiu jitsu coach, or my deep-tissue guy, and want to really focus on one part of what I do. I train in all these different disciplines.

Conor McGregor

I never took reds or Quaaludes to balance out the coke. So when it got to be four in the morning and the gram was three quarters gone, I'd start wishing it was nine o'clock and hoping the guy got up early. But, of course, he didn't sleep either, so there was no sweat. During all those years, I was always looking forward to the next snort or the next guy I could score from.

George Carlin

Ability is of little account without opportunity. I have very rarely met with two o'clock in the morning courage: I mean instantaneous courage.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In those who rest on their unshakable faith, pharisaism and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is not overcome by repression but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it takes the doubt into itself as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the content of an ultimate concern. Courage does not need the safety of an unquestionable conviction. It includes the risk without which no creative life is possible.

Paul Tillich

I have a half an hour window that if I don't go to sleep in that time frame I am up all night.

Gemma Collins

How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? How much courage to go on and do that after you've spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, "I have to quit these peas. Peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans.