Whats real courage?

If you have read To Kill a Mockingbird, you would know who was Atticus. If you know who was Atticus, you would know how he defined 'real courage' to his kids, Scout and Jem.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11, spoken by the character Atticus

Here are some other memorable quotes from the same book:

They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill. "Yes, sir, a clown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off."
"You got it backwards, Dill," said Jem. "Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them."
"Well, I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks."

She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

Atticus: I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. Well, I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.

Comments

Shreshth said…
Great quotes!!!
trueB said…
always avoided this book..guess i was missing some good stuff eh
ive seen the move- im sure it was adapted from the book
abhimir said…
i have read the books and it is my all time favourite book...
it was nice to see others who know and appreciate the book... cause its very difficult to find people who have read this book...
this might be late, very late a comment....but then i happened to vist ur blog the first time today thro' shishir's blog........this is my all-time fav book, and this comes from a person who'd live all her life with just books and classics.......................it's a lovely book, i have almost given it away more than any other book just in hope that more n more ppl wud read it.

nice to meet another who appreciates it :)

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