According to Maya Angelou, "Courage is the most important of the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."

According to the Swiss psychologist Andreas Dick, courage consists of the following components:[41]

1. put at risk, risk or repugnance, or sacrifice safety or convenience, which may result in death, bodily harm, social condemnation or emotional deprivation;


2. a knowledge of wisdom and prudence about what is right and wrong in a given moment;


3. Hope and

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From their research, they were able to find the "four necessary components of people's notion of courage".[47] They are:

1. "intentionality/deliberation"[47]


2. "personal fear"[47]


3. "noble/good act"[47]


4. "and personal risk"[47]

With these four components, they were able to define courage as:

a willful, intentional act, executed after mindful deliberation,

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Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being.

Ambrose held that fortitude without justice occasions injustice; since the stronger a man is the more ready to oppress the weaker.

Courage defends us, but cowardice lays us open to every attack

the ability to act for a meaningful (noble, good, or practical) cause, despite experiencing the fear associated with perceived threat exceeding the available resources

Hume wrote that courage is a cause of pride: "Every valuable quality of the mind, whether of the imagination, judgment, memory or disposition; wit, good-sense, learning, courage, justice, integrity; all these are the cause of pride; and their opposites of humility".

self-confidence; confidence in knowing one's skills and abilities and being able to determine when to fight fear or when to flee it.