"Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid."
"Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."
—The Ancestor, Darkest Dungeon
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
— Alexander Pope in his short writing An Essay On Criticism
"If they are so eager to die, and will not heed the advice of superiors, then let them rush headlong into the jaws of the lion. We can only hope some of them get caught in its throat."
— Lord Solar Macharius on the Space Wolves, Warhammer 40,000
"All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood."
— General George S. Patton
"Courage isn't just a matter of not being afraid. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway."
— The Third Doctor, Doctor Who, Planet of the Daleks
"Foolish are those who fear nothing, yet claim to know everything."
"A fool knows no fear. A hero shows no fear."
"He doesn't know when he's beat, this boy... he doesn't know when he's winning either... he doesn't have any sort of sensory apparatus at all..."
— Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Upper-Class Twit of the Year"
Black Knight: "I'M INVINCIBLE!"
King Arthur: "You're a loony."
King Arthur: "You're a loony."
Tsze-lu asked, "If you had the conduct of the armies of a great State, whom would you have to act with you?"
Confucius replied, "I would not have him to act with me who will unarmed attack a tiger, or cross a river without a boat, dying without any regret. My associate must be the man who proceeds to action full of thoughtfulness, who is fond of carefully laying out his plans, and then carries them into execution."
Confucius replied, "I would not have him to act with me who will unarmed attack a tiger, or cross a river without a boat, dying without any regret. My associate must be the man who proceeds to action full of thoughtfulness, who is fond of carefully laying out his plans, and then carries them into execution."
— The Analects
"I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Mei: Not knowing what fear is isn't bravery; that's just being an idiot.
Heidi: Like you.
Mei: Right! Like me! I'm an expert at doing stupid things which aren't actually that brave! I have life-long experience at it!
Heidi: Like you.
Mei: Right! Like me! I'm an expert at doing stupid things which aren't actually that brave! I have life-long experience at it!
Tyler: Must be nice. Not being able to cry. I got to give that a whirl.
Kinsey: No, you don't. I wish I'd never done it. Maybe if I could still remember what it's like to feel sad, I wouldn't have gone and fucked things up with my best friends. Jamal and Scot won't talk to each other anymore and Jackie told me she can't be friends with someone so... reckless with other people's trust. And she's right. What a mess I made, Tyler.
Kinsey: No, you don't. I wish I'd never done it. Maybe if I could still remember what it's like to feel sad, I wouldn't have gone and fucked things up with my best friends. Jamal and Scot won't talk to each other anymore and Jackie told me she can't be friends with someone so... reckless with other people's trust. And she's right. What a mess I made, Tyler.
— Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom
"Fearless? Brainless? Who can tell?"
— Jebediah Kerman's Steam trading card text.
"I've seen cathars riding to battle without a hint of fear. Perhaps that is its own sort of madness."
"You've been making a name for yourself: and that name is 'Dangerous Idiot'."
— Lester Crest, Grand Theft Auto V
"Humans who talk to dragons without fear are either looking to attack me, or they have a few screws loose in their head. In this case... it was the latter."
— Tohru describing the Bandit, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid
"Today will be your first jump. Don't lie to yourself that you don't fear. You will fear. Actually, you will be terrified for your lives. And that is a good thing, because fear protects you. Courage is not a lack of fear. Courage is the resolve to act despite your being terrified for your lives. Only psychopaths or fools don't fear. They are the ones who get maimed."
— Anonymous skydiving instructor
I scramble upright and break into a low, fearful trot, searching for friends, even for familiar enemies, anyone I have ever met apart from the Magnificent Carsville, who brushes past me and is now charging into the fog with a kitchen knife strapped to the end of an assault rifle as a bayonet. He seems oblivious to the fact that it will come off the first time he tries to use it and slip down the barrel without doing much harm, and that the tape will impede the action of the gun and cause it to explode in his stupid, handsome face. But of course he's oblivious. These things don't happen to screen idols.
Nate: [to a horde of zombies] Come and get me, you ugly freaks! That's it! Follow me, you big dummies!
General Grant: That gent is either the bravest man I have ever had in my ranks or the dumbest.
General Grant: That gent is either the bravest man I have ever had in my ranks or the dumbest.
There's a fine line between courage and recklessness. As brave as you are, that does not make you immortal.
— Princess Zelda, to Link, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
"The only thing to fear is fearlessness."
— R.E.M., "Hyena"
[about the Snob] Mate of yours, then? Sounds like an officer I had in the desert, actually. Bloke by the name of Carstairs. He was a brave man, yeah, but he was a snobby little shit that reckoned you weren't worth a sod unless you were one of the officer class. One of the chaps. Anyway, one day, not long after the Alamein scrap, me and the platoon are having a look around this Arab village - well, if the truth be told, we were looting it - when all of a sudden, this bloody great Jerry panzer truck comes over the hill. "Come on you men," shouts Carstairs, and he runs at the damn thing! Can you believe it? So there he is with his revolver and bugger-all else, and he turns around to wave us on - and he suddenly realizes he's alone! We'd all frigging legged it, hadn't we? Worth sod-all we may have been, but we weren't thick. Next thing he knows, he's got ten pounds of explosives up his arse, and his bollocks are halfway to Cairo. They sent him home in a matchbox, if I remember rightly.
—Matt, Hellblazer: Friends In High Places
Gardenia: If you're not careful, you could even lose your life! What you're full of isn't courage. It's stupidity.
Hareta: I'm fine with being stupid!
Hareta: I'm fine with being stupid!
Whatever Zaphod's qualities of mind might include -– dash, bravado, conceit -– he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.
Simba: I was just trying to be brave, like you.
Mufasa: I'm only brave when I have to be. Simba, being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble.
Simba: But you're not scared of anything.
Mufasa: I was today.
Simba: You were?
Mufasa: Yes... I thought I might lose you.
Mufasa: I'm only brave when I have to be. Simba, being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble.
Simba: But you're not scared of anything.
Mufasa: I was today.
Simba: You were?
Mufasa: Yes... I thought I might lose you.
Arcee: I was afraid you'd be trapped outside the city.
Hot Rod: Hey, I wasn't worried for a microsecond.
Arcee: Then you probably didn't understand the situation.
Hot Rod: Hey, I wasn't worried for a microsecond.
Arcee: Then you probably didn't understand the situation.
"I can't decide if that was brave or stupid. Wait, no... that was pretty stupid."
—Sasha, Battlepug
"Sensei told me... being brave isn't not being scared. It's not letting being scared stop you. I'm not scared... so I'm not really brave, right?"
—Kaai Yuki, The Return of Hatsune Miku
"Bold!...and stupid!"
