Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities - because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

I love revolutionaries who have the courage to stand up against the status quo. They're always misunderstood but they're the ones who are standing up for human rights.

There is no glory in war yet from the blackness of its history there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends.

None speak of the bravery the might or the intellect of Jesus but the devil is always imagined as a being of acute intellect political cunning and the fiercest courage. These universal and instinctive tendencies of the human mind reveal much.

But steel bars have never yet kept out a mob it takes something a good deal stronger: human courage backed up by the consciousness of being right.

The single outstanding exception was the broad yet precise mandate communicated by the General Assembly in 1946 to prepare as soon as possible the Charter of Human Rights which the San Francisco Conference had not had the time or the courage to draw up.

I'm a writer of faith who worries about the intolerance of religion. I look at the past and fear we haven't learned from it. I believe that humanity is capable of evil as well as great acts of courage and goodness. I have hope. Deep down I believe in the human spirit although sometimes that belief is shaken.

When we read stories of heroes we identify with them. We take the journey with them. We see how the obstacles almost overcome them. We see how they grow as human beings or gain qualities or show great qualities of strength and courage and with them we grow in some small way.

I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh and I think we are never more brave than when we do that.

It takes both courage and talent to stand up in front of fellow human beings and make them crack a smile and at the same time keep it clean.