Editing Courage (section)

====19th century onward====

[[Søren Kierkegaard]] opposed courage to [[angst]],{{cn|date=July 2023}} while [[Paul Tillich]] opposed an existential ''courage to be'' with [[non-being]],{{sfn|Tillich|1952|p=89}} fundamentally equating it with [[religion]]:
{{blockquote|Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of non-being upon itself by affirming itself... in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation.... every courage to be has openly or covertly a religious root. For religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself.{{sfn|Tillich|1952|pp=152–183}} }}

[[J.R.R. Tolkien]] identified in his 1936 lecture "[[Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics]]" a "[[Northern Europe|Northern]] 'theory of courage'" – the [[hero]]ic or "[[virtuous pagan]]" insistence to do the right thing even in the face of certain defeat without promise of reward or [[salvation]]:
{{blockquote|It is the strength of the [[Norse mythology|northern mythological imagination]] that it faced this problem, put the monsters in the centre, gave them victory but no honor, and found a potent and terrible solution in naked will and courage. 'As a working theory absolutely impregnable.' So potent is it, that while the [[Greek mythology|older southern imagination]]  has faded forever into literary ornament, the northern has power, as it were, to revive its spirit even in our own times. It can work, as it did even with the ''[[goðlauss]]'' Viking, without gods: martial heroism as its own end.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://completejrrt.tv/tta_open/2$B.+Old+English+Tales+and+Literary+Works%5bSection%5d/8$The+Monsters+And+The+Critics%5bBook%5d/1$Beowulf..+The+Monsters+and+the+Critics%5bChapter%5d/0025.htm|title=Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics|last=Tolkien|first=JRR|publisher=The Tolkien Estate|page=25|access-date=2008-04-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015113632/http://completejrrt.tv/tta_open/2%24B.%2BOld%2BEnglish%2BTales%2Band%2BLiterary%2BWorks%5BSection%5D/8%24The%2BMonsters%2BAnd%2BThe%2BCritics%5BBook%5D/1%24Beowulf..%2BThe%2BMonsters%2Band%2Bthe%2BCritics%5BChapter%5D/0025.htm|archive-date=2007-10-15|url-status=dead}}</ref>}}

Virtuous pagan heroism or courage in this sense is "trusting in your own strength", as observed by [[Jacob Grimm]] in his ''Teutonic Mythology'':

{{blockquote|Men who, turning away in utter disgust and doubt from the heathen faith, placed their reliance on their own strength and virtue. Thus in the [[Sôlar lioð]] 17 we read of Vêbogi and Râdey {{lang|non|â sik þau trûðu}}, "in themselves they trusted".<ref>{{cite book|last=Grimm|first=Jacob|title=Deutsche Mythologie (Teutonic Mythology)|publisher=Göttingen|location=Dieterich|year=1835|edition=1|language=de}}</ref>}}

[[Ernest Hemingway]] famously defined courage as "grace under pressure".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.neh.gov/humanities/1999/julyaugust/feature/celebrating-ernest-hemingway%E2%80%99s-century|year=1999|title=Celebrating Ernest Hemingway's Century|last=Carter|first=Richard|work=neh.gov|publisher=National Endowment for the Humanities|access-date=2009-06-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930035235/http://www.neh.gov/humanities/1999/julyaugust/feature/celebrating-ernest-hemingway%E2%80%99s-century|archive-date=2013-09-30|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Winston Churchill]] stated, "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all others."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Winston Churchill |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00002969 |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00002969|doi-broken-date=8 April 2025 }}</ref>

According to [[Maya Angelou]], "Courage is the most important of the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."<ref>Maya Angelou, ''Meeting Dr. Du Bois'' (audio interview by Krista Tippett, 2014)</ref> And [[C. S. Lewis]] wrote that "Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality."<ref>{{cite book|first=C. S.|last=Lewis|title=The Screwtape Letters|year=1942|at=letter XXIX}}</ref>

In ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]'', [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] describes [[master–slave morality]], in which a noble man regards himself as a "determiner of values"; one who does not require approval, but passes judgment. Later, in the same text, he lists man's four virtues as courage, insight, sympathy, and solitude, and goes on to emphasize the importance of courage: "The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to re-baptize our evil qualities as our best qualities."{{sfn|Nietzsche|1989|p=65}}

According to the Swiss psychologist Andreas Dick, courage consists of the following components:<ref>{{cite book|first=Andreas|last=Dick|title=Mut – Über sich hinauswachsen|publisher=Hans Huber Verlag|location=Bern|year=2010|isbn=978-3-456-84835-8}}</ref>

# put at risk, risk or repugnance, or sacrifice safety or convenience, which may result in death, bodily harm, social condemnation or emotional deprivation;
# a knowledge of wisdom and prudence about what is right and wrong in a given moment;
# Hope and confidence in a happy, meaningful outcome;
# a free will;
# a motive based on love.