A garland of quotations LXXXIV
Culled from the finest graveyard-whistlers in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday
Whenever they wish to curse their children they say to them: “Be accursed like a Frank, who puts on armor for fear of death!” In battle they carry nothing but swords and spears.
•Jean de Joinville on the Bedouins, The Life of Saint Louis (1309.)
To run away is held to be so shameful that they often will not even escape if a house collapses and falls on them, nor if the house is on fire and they are caught by flames. Many of them stand firm as the sea washes over them.
•Aelian on the Celts, Varia Historia (C3).
When God was portioning out fear to all the people in the world, at last it came to my turn, and there was no fear left to give me. Go, tell all the people in Khartoum that Gordon fears nothing, for God has created him without fear.
•Charles Gordon to Bordeini Bey (1884); quoted in Strachey, Eminent Victorians (1918).
Real heroes…are always people who act reluctantly. They die, but they would rather not die; they kill, but they would rather not kill;…real heroes are always impelled by circumstances; they never choose because, if they could, they would choose not to be heroes.…The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
•Umberto Eco. “Why are They Laughing in Those Cages?” (1982).
His expressed contempt and defiance of the world reminds me of the bravadoes of children, who, afraid of darkness, make a noise to give themselves courage to support what they dread.
•Marguerite Blessington on Byron, Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington (1834).
Personally, I feel no fear: I’m called William the Fearless: I have courage to spare. I mean not the courage of the lamb: I mean the courage of the wolf and the confidence of a cut-throat. There is nothing I fear—but dangers.
•Rabelais, The Fourth Book of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Our Good Giant Pantagruel (1552).
When I hear of a man doing a brave deed I always want to discover whether at the time he was well and comfortable in body. That, I am certain, is the biggest ingredient in courage, and those who plan and execute great deeds in bodily weakness have my homage as truly heroic.
•John Buchan, Prester John (1910).
The too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the success of those projects which require rapid decision, and vigorous and determined execution.
•Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–46).
If your Nerve, deny you—
Go above your Nerve—
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve—
•Dickinson, #292 (c.1861).
What cheer, master? though all fail, let not the heart faint: the courage of a man is showed in the resolution of his death.
•Thomas Lodge, Rosalynde (1590).
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
•J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904).
Sources: Jean: trans. M.R.B. Shaw, Chronicles of the Crusades (Penguin, 1963); Aelian: trans. N.G. Wilson, Historical Miscellany (Loeb) (Harvard UP, 1997); Eco: trans. William Weaver, Travels in Hyperreality (HBJ, 1986); Rabelais: trans. M.A. Screech, Gargantua and Pantagruel (Penguin, 2006); Dumas: trans. anonymously (Grosset & Dunlop, 1901); Dickinson: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Little Brown, 1976); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.
