Tim O'Brien Quotes

Moral courage is higher and a rarer virtue than physical courage.

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future.

Leadership is about doing what you know is right - even when a growing din of voices around you is trying to convince you to accept what you know to be wrong.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

A wise woman knows how to summon her courage and do what is right, rather than what is easy.

'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

I don't know any other way to live but to wake up every day armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold.

The courage of New England was the courage of conscience.

Fight for what you know to be right. Don't give up.

You have to stand on your beliefs.

Virtue is an inner strength. It expands your nature.

Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

I, for one, am actually still incredibly idealistic, and I still can credibly or very strongly believe that you have to keep fighting for what you believe in, because it's only when you stop that you've truly lost.

You have to do what is real and what is right and what is good and what you believe in. It doesn't mean it's always going to work. It doesn't. But when it does, it is truthful and forever.

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

The greatest want of the world is the want of men - men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.

The world is full of men who think and teach what is right. But as soon as they are called upon to act, they are assailed by doubts and fears.

For the men and women of the FBI, bravery is reflected not only in the physical courage often necessary in the job. It can be seen in the courage of conviction, in the courage to act with wisdom in the face of fear, and in the courage it takes to admit mistakes and move forward.

I think it's a really admirable thing to be very sure of your own moral code and not waver from that.