Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)

by Ryan Holiday

consistently make good bets every day.

Be steady and courageous today, in everything that counts.

There is something behind you on this, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Fortune is here. Fate is smiling upon you. But she tires quickly. She will resent you if you make her wait. Better risk now than gamble later. In either case, boldly proceed.

As General Mattis said, cynicism is cowardice. It takes courage to care. Only the brave believe, especially when everyone else is full of doubt.

Nobody is brave without first braving and triumphing over cynicism and indifference.

“Be not afraid of greatness,” Shakespeare said. Let it enter your blood and spirit. Fight for it.

Nihilism is for losers.

“People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors,” George Eliot observed in Middlemarch.

We won’t always be successful, but we have to try.

“An attempt can go wrong, but inaction inevitably results in failure.”

Courage, he said, was the midpoint between two vices—cowardice being the best known, but recklessness being equally dangerous.

Fear can at least protect a person. Complete fearlessness is a recipe for ruin.

Courage isn’t about measuring dicks. Or idle bravado.

Courage is about risk, but only necessary risk. Only carefully considered risk.

The courageous do not, as we have said, run around half-cocked. They are not stupid and therefore do not actively seek conflict. Even in their daring, they will be subdued unless you happen to find them in the midst of one of those rare decisive moments where they must call upon their courage. And still, in action they will be deliberate and calm, methodical and measured.

Caution and care are not antonyms for courage but complements.

The unreasonable person is the one who changes the world. The one who believes they can decide the end of the story, that’s the one who at least has a chance of writing some history.

Sometimes physical courage is required to protect moral courage. There will be moments when we are at risk—or someone we love is at risk. Kind words will not cut it.

no situation is hopeless, we’re never without agency.

Our duty is to do the right thing—right now.

If we only did what we were sure of, if we only proceeded when things were favorable, then history would never be made. The averages have been against everything that ever happened—that’s why we call it the mean.

It takes courage to look at the averages and say, “I am not average.” To say, “Somebody will be the exception and it may as well be me.”

“You had a brave man for a grandfather,” Seneca’s father wrote, hoping to inspire his own children and their children. “See to it that you are braver.”

So be braver. Right now. Here, in this decisive moment.

Man is pushed by drives. But he is pulled by values. Viktor Frankl

True heroism shames us. Humbles us. It moves us beyond reason—because it came from something beyond reason. Which is why we worship it so.

the Spartans were actually fighting for something: They were prepared to fight—and die—so that others might stay free.

What we’re willing to give—that full measure of our devotion, to the effort, to a stranger, to what must be done—that’s what takes us higher. That’s what transforms us from brave to heroic. Maybe for a moment, maybe to just one person, maybe to be enshrined in the history books for all time.

Courage is not an independent good. Heroes have a reason. What good is a deed if done for its own sake? What weight does bravery have as a parlor trick or as an exercise of vanity? Or of unquestioning obedience? What if it’s done for the wrong thing?

“The Stoics,” Cicero would write, “correctly define courage as the virtue which champions the cause of right . . . No one has attained true glory who has gained a reputation for courage by treachery and cunning.”

It’s good to be brave. The world does want to know if you have cojones. But the why, the where, the when of it counts. The cause makes all.

A nation should have brave soldiers (physical courage) and wise statesmen (moral courage). One fights the battles, the other cultivates the relationships and policies that reduce their necessity. We need generals and conscientious objectors, because both are courageous warriors in their own way, fighting for important causes.

As we’ve said, half-cocked is not courage. “Macho” is often masochism.

nothing is more immoral than unnecessary conflict.

These are heroic questions. If it can be avoided—it should be. Discretion, goes the expression, is the better part of valor.

We avoid the petty fights so we can be ready for the ones that matter.

You don’t think that you’ll be loved and appreciated for all you do, do you?

A long desert. A desolate valley. Either way, you’ll need to cross it. You’ll need patience and endurance and most of all love. You can’t let this period make you bitter. You have to make sure it makes you better.

To struggle makes the destination glorious. And heroic.

Love makes us heroic.

“Happy is the man who can make others better,” Seneca writes, “not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts.”

No, you have to go. You have to hit send. You have to push the child out of the way. You have to step forward. You have to speak up—there’s not even time to clear your throat first.

Trust your gut. Do your duty. Maybe it will work out. Maybe it won’t. The hero does it anyway.

We Make Our Own Luck

Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever is going on. There’s more you can do.

A hero is a person who does what needs to be done, not just for themselves but for others.

As Marcus Aurelius writes, “True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.”

We will our purpose into existence. We choose to be heroes. And if we don’t, it’s on us.

You must care about the people in your care. You must put them first. You must show them with your actions. Call them to something higher.

The leader risks themselves for us. They step to the front. They make their courage contagious.