Courage is the fear that takes one step forward.
From Taking Everything into Account, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
The starlings had a fledgling out on the Dunbars' fence this morning, all feet and no plan. He stood on the rail for most of an hour while the wind came up the yard at him, and every few minutes he would lean out and then pull back, lean and pull back. I used to think the brave ones were the birds who did not feel the drop. Watched him long enough to see his whole body shaking when he finally went, and he was still shaking in the air, and he got to the maple anyway. Courage is the fear that takes one step forward; the fear does not leave first and then the stepping happens, they go together or not at all. What I cannot decide is whether he knew he would make it, or whether his feet simply ran out of fence.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- Better to stumble on the right path than stride forward on the wrong one.
- No matter where you look for it, the sun only rises in the east.
- A know-it-all doesn’t and doesn’t know that he doesn’t.
- We have learned so much about how to make a better world, but not learned enough.
- The beginning of naming is the end of knowing.
- Call it what you will, it will be what it is.