10 Riveting Quotes on Courage from Renowned Artists, Poets, and Creatives That Will Empower You to Overcome Fear and Embrace Change
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”
— Maya Angelou
Hello, my dear readers,
It is Monday, February 19th, and today I am thinking about artistic courage. What does it mean to be courageous as an artist?
Is courage the bravery one must possess to no longer lie to themselves? Is it the bravery one must inhabit to speak freely and without constraint of the society at large?
Or is boldness, courage, tenacity, whatever word you may choose, merely just the requisite energy necessary to come to the page (or canvas) day after day, to present yourself humbly before the muses, and set out creating, with no guarantees and no assurances of what may come?
Is bravery the end of all or nothing? Is it the commitment to a person, a place, an art form, consistently showing up for that thing day after day, even when you don’t feel like it?
Is courage the blessing Wendell Berry recants in his famous poem about commitment? “and once again I am blessed, choosing / again what I chose before.”
That sounds like courage to me, but let’s see what 10 famous creatives have to say on the matter.
As always, leave a comment below and let me know what resonated with you in this reflection and what’s on your mind today.
I love hearing from you all, even if I am a bit slow to respond. ❤
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
— Vincent Van Gogh
I can still hear the sound of Maki Cynthia humming inside of those faraway mornings. The sound of Vunene crawling and cooing as she dragged her little blanket across the concrete floor, making the sounds that babies make.
Baba Jeffrey was always outside working in those days. Georgi, an exchange student from Bulgaria, asleep in the other room.
Resona, the eldest daughter, was more tricky. She didn’t like that Georgi and I were there. I can’t blame her.
The arrival of two foreigners, I suppose, upended her parents’ fixation on her and her sister, and represented a threat to the natural order of things as she saw them, in which she was rightfully the center of the universe.
In the evenings we won her over. We would play word games and laugh at the television together and I would help with her homework, patiently answering her questions.
Eventually, her scowl morphed into a smile, and she would begin to miss us while we were gone away at work.
We knew to bring her and Vunene presents whenever we could. Like most children, she and her sister just wanted candies and treats and books and games.
The little man who ran the cantine began to laugh at the way we were always buying them little trinkets, trying to win them over with gifts and bribes.
I knew that over time she grew to love us, and we grew to love her too. She was a precocious, funny, endearing child. I think she realized, as all children eventually do, that change is not the end, but the beginning.
It must’ve been sad for her when we left, I know it was for us. We left a scrapbook behind with pictures of that time. I wonder if she keeps it, or maybe even Vunene does, a baby then, but now a young woman.
How many years ago was it now? Twelve years? Can it really have been that long ago?
I wonder what Vunene thinks of the foreigners who came to live with her family for a while. If she laughs a the funny pictures of us all together, posing for photos, and laughing with full-faced smiles — forever frozen in time.
This is what comes to mind when I read this quote from Van Gogh.
What if I had not had the courage to pack up my life and move to South Africa?
What if I had given into the nearly 1,000 excuses that everyone else seemed to have for why I should not and could not lead an extraordinary and adventurous life?
So much of my being would’ve never come to fruition in the way it has now. I would’ve never had those hundred nights, out in the planting fields, starring up at a pitch black sky with so many stars, I would’ve never felt the hand of God hold me in it, I would’ve never met Commenti, before his life was cut far too short, I would’ve never had the joy of laughing with him as we walked around Gottenburg all those precious days.
What would my life have become if I had not been brave? I am not sure I want to know.
Dreams deffered are wretched unbearable things. Best to seize them when we can, lest we let ourselves suffer more in this life than we already do.
“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”
— Ernest Hemingway
I remember my grandmother, Gwendolyn, with her sweet, imploring eyes, as she begged of my child consciousness to understand her lessons, the way that she never hit me, even when I misbehaved, how she would giggle and laugh with me when I wanted to.
That old piano, its many rows, the big jar of jelly beans, mom’s patchy phone calls, always in Argentina, or Brazil, or somewhere else.
Where was Dad in those days? Surely he would’ve been rebuilding after Hurricane Andrew. I imagine mortality crossed his mind often in those days.
And me, little me, how old could I have been at that time? 7? 8?
I was there in that basement, eating jelly beans and playing piano with my grandmother as she tried so desperately to teach me to read.
I learned so slowly, strange and ironic that it’s my calling now, my profession, my reason.
I wonder how many people wrestle with things and quit them, disciplines that might just save their lives if they wrestled a little longer.
I think of the comedian at Dartmouth, the one who came to those basement shows in One Wheelock Cafe, how lonely it must’ve been on the road for her, how strange to return to the same circuit year after year, nursing a dream.
I hope she never quit.
It breaks my heart to see people give up on what they love. The things that nourish them, the things that bring them home to themselves, and their own innate power.
“The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence.”
— Marina Abramović
This reminds me of my mother, who is both and intellectual in the traditional sense, but also has a deep well of emotional intelligence she’s rarely credited for. Women so often go un-credited for their gifts, and men, well they’re given prizes just for showing up.
Isn’t it strange the world is this way? That it’s so uneven? So unequal?
How can they say my mother stopped working, even in the years when she was not chained to a desk? Did raising me and my sister not count?
Did the thousands of hours she spent, her back probably aching with pain, as we studied for each and every test — did those hours not count as labor?
She was a champion, my mother, in all the ways someone can be, a champion of mind, a champion of heart, she implored me to leave the world better than I found it, to always know that it could all end, the blessings, to not take things for granted, and to work so hard, because life was so unpredictable.
She taught me how to have a mind that was dexterous, how to see many sides of an opinion, how to mince fact from fiction, how to know when a person is lying to you, how to read the room, how to scan for potential dangers, she taught me all of this, a school in and of itself.
Remember those long car rides? When I was what? 10? 11?
We’d be in the backseat, sister and I, and she’d be quizzing us on the words, the trees she’s say, they’re all around us… I can still remember the look on her face as she got lost in them all, as they zipped by the window, as the world outside passed in its quiet insistent unending blur.
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”
— Georgia O’Keeffe
Sometimes, you have to break your own heart. That’s what I felt the day I left Justin.
I knew that he loved me, that he was ready to spend his life with me and I was ready to spend my life with him. I loved him, and I was happy with him, but it wasn’t enough.
There was something missing.
Maybe it’s because I was young, and he was settled in his life professionally, but I could tell that there was more the universe wanted me to experience, not sexually or socially, but intellectually, things that I would never truly get to understand if I stayed, things, heartbreaks maybe, that I had to suffer in person, in my own reality, not in a world tied to his.
I knew I broke his heart when I left him. I broke my own too. But there was something, a voice, my grandmothers perhaps, or maybe my own intuition that told me I could not stay. “This is not your life.” It said again and again.
And with pain in my heart, I left. And so did the life we imagined, the world we were building, our wedding in Paris, all the dreams we’d had. I still think of his old apartment in Los Angeles, all the paintings. I heard he’s with someone new now, that he’s happy, and it makes me feel peace that he’s found someone.
There was this MasterClass once, it Sara Blakley I think her name was. She’s a billionaire now, not that this alone legitimizes the story, god if I ever become a capitalist love story person — please slap me — but this woman, I saw her MasterClass and I loved it, I loved her.
And she shared a story of when she was young, selling fax machines, and this dull ache in the pit of her stomach that she was in the wrong life, that she was in the wrong city, with the wrong person, doing the wrong thing, that it just wasn’t what her life was meant to be. And the way she described it, is that she was in the wrong movie.
That she was watching this movie of her life and she was going through the motions, but everything was off, wrong, incomplete.
It was around that time she began laying the groundwork for her company Spanx, the company that has made her a billionaire, arguably her life’s great work, a company that empowers women and pays its employees generously, a beautiful thing all around, and had she never realized she was in the wrong movie, there’s perhaps a version of her somewhere, in another universe, still selling those damn fax machines.
What would your life look like if you allowed yourself to leave the movie you’re in, to go off and courageously write your own story?
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
— Pablo Picasso
When I moved to Italy, I did not speak Italian.
I had taken two years of it in college, but I could barely utter words in the language without intense bouts of anxiety.
It’s strange to be so close to fluency now, because when I think back to those days, how bold it was to allow myself to live somewhere where I didn’t speak the language, all the things I learned about the city of Rome, the culture of Italian people, which varies so much by region, that I could only learn in person, that I could only learn through experience.
I think sometimes you have to take the leap even when you are not ready.
Preparation is a beautiful thing, but don’t prepare your life away, the thing itself will be so unpredictable.
I didn’t become near fluent in Italian until years after I lived there, imagine if I hadn’t gone on the trip just because of something as small as a language barrier?
Imagine all the lifelong friends I wouldn’t have now.
Little decisions influence our lives in vast and unforeseen ways, take the trip — don’t let the opportunity pass, you’ll figure it out as you go.
You always do.
“You think because he doesn’t love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn’t want you anymore that he is right — that his judgment and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don’t. It’s a bad word, ‘belong.’ Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn’t be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can’t even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don’t wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can’t own a human being. You can’t lose what you don’t own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don’t, do you? And neither does he. You’re turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can’t value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison
It hurts me to read this quote because I used to be that girl, that girl that fell apart when the person I loved went out the door.
It’s funny, in a book Oprah once wrote, called What I Know For Sure, she shares the story of discovering her old love letters from her early twenties, she recounts how pathetic (her words) she was in those letters, begging a man to love her who repeatedly told her that he did not and that further he didn’t think she was special. (WTF??!!!)
When she recounts the story now it is from the position she currently occupies, one of the most famous and influential people of all time, an artist, a humanitarian, a filmmaker, an actress, a writer, one of my personal heroes — but back in her twenties, she was like so many of us are, falling apart the minute a man leaves our side.
For me, the thing that finally healed this in me, was a heartbreak bigger than I can explain, it was more than a breakup or a separation, it was something that rocked my world to its very core.
Even back then, in the olden times, when I was, I’ll use the word too, pathetic, it wasn’t because I was blithely unaware, I knew how unsustainable it all away, how needy I had become, but it was because I was so damn afraid of going out on my own.
It was easier in so many ways to be obsessed with my relationships, to endlessly seek validation and assurance from them, because it allowed me to prologue the terrifying reality of confronting that I did not love myself, that I didn’t even like myself.
Not even a little bit.
I gave everything I had away to other people because I was convinced I didn’t deserve any of it.
And while I hope it is not a painful separation that leads to your healing journey, that is what did the trick for me, two years of unimaginable pain, reading countless books, and finally finding the courage from deep within to face the person I’ve been avoiding my entire life: myself.
Finally facing my dissatisfaction, my anger, my misery, all the ways I’d been let down and mistreated and just swallowed it, pretending it didn’t happen, facing my ambitions, my failures, my heartbreaks, because you see before that I lived in a near constantly state of pleasure-seeking avoidance which left me miserable the moment the object of my pleasure left me.
On the other side, I am (I can’t believe I am even writing this) healed. It’s like that version of me, the one from all those years ago, he’s not me, he’s like — I guess in the words of Oprah, this pathetic person I used to be, who would beg others (who did not like me in the first place) to see the worth I didn’t even fully believe in myself.
Now, I’m different. I love myself fully. I can say that with my full chest, all ten toes.
I know that I am beautiful, and brilliant, and funny, and talented, and charismatic, and creative, and a great friend, and a great child, and a great brother, and a great writer, and all of the things.
I see myself now and I feel nothing but pride, pride at how consistent I am with my goals, how brave I am to face my fears, how unbelievably proud I am to have moved through so much pain and born it with grit and grace, how I let the suffering make me kinder, how I let it all, all the things I’ve been and survived, that I let it all make me softer, more loving, more generous, more open — how the men that hurt me, that I didn’t let them own me, that I healed from their wounds and became strong again, on my own, and in community with my loved ones.
I am a badass.
I know that now.
And I’m sad I wasted so much time believing otherwise. I‘m sad I wasted so much time filling my life with people who made me believe I was worthless.
Sad that I would ever let myself be treated so poorly by such awful losers, it’s embarrassing to think of it, as if I can’t even believe I could’ve let it happen.
But all is in the past, all is forgiven, and most importantly of all: I am happy, my life is bountiful, full, and overflowing. I have more love and creative energy and abundance and support and happiness and success than I even know what to do with.
All is good again.
If you’re suffering right now, know that this is just a season, it’s never too late to start your healing journey. It won’t always be linear, ask for help wherever you need it, and give yourself permission to face yourself, the shames, the regrets, the demons, the heartbreaks, all of it.
Move through it with as much courage and compassion as you can muster, and I promise on the other side you’ll find peace, pleasure, and a bounty that you could’ve never predicted.
The world is waiting for you, to meet yourself fully, to love yourself unconditionally. And when you do, that’s when it all will begin to change for you.
I swear it.
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”
― Mary Anne Radmacher
I love you all. =)
I’ll see you again tomorrow.
— Alex
That is very beautiful! Life is certainly a journey and it sounds as if you've had an interesting one. I can relate to alot of what you wrote because I too feel there is a huge world calling for me. I don't know why though because without the money to travel, I simply can't. I wasn't born with that freedom. I'm not in a wheelchair anymore but certainly wasn't born with the freedom to travel in order to live correctly. I haven't let that stop me until recently because others tend to make me feel like my dreams aren't worth following, etc. My thoughts or quesions I ask myself are why then? Why do I even feel the need to travel? My family feels just the opposite and although they are helpful in their own way, they do not support my following my dreams and make me feel less or as if I should give up on them. They were supportive if I were on a stage sharing the story of my trauma, instead of wanting to be treated as a normal artist, etc. See....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZptPQEgdiM&t=34s That's me years ago and before I realised that my family, etc. would only support my dreams if I asked for pity. As if having Epilepsy means that any dreams I have will never come true and I should give up. I don't understand it. Yet, I still go on.... Your story is very inspiring. :) Thank you for sharing it. I do think you're strong and amazing!!! It's not easy to follow your dreams but I sure wish that more people did that, if not for themselves for people like me and worse who can't. Although, maybe one day I can. Who knows but I don't think that I have as long as the normal person my age. In my eyes that makes life even more meanful. Thank you for having the courage to make the most out of life.
I think my favourite was Picasso's.