"Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glorious piece of inspirational rhetoric and just as gloriously wrong."

Courage

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Courage as articulated by Russell Baker. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Courage provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Russell Baker

Russell Wayne Baker was an American journalist, narrator, writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical commentary and self-critical prose, and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography Growing Up (1982). He was a columnist for The New York Times for 36 years, and hosted eleven seasons of the PBS show Masterpiece Theatre. The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 stated: "Baker, thanks to his singular gift of treating serious, even tragic events and trends with gentle humor, has become an American institution."

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More by Russell Baker

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."

— Russell Baker
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"Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things."

— Russell Baker
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"When sudden death takes a president, opportunities for new beginnings flourish among the ambitious and the tensions among such people can be dramatic, as they were when President Kennedy was killed."

— Russell Baker
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"Poetry is so vital to us until school spoils it."

— Russell Baker
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More about Courage

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point."

— C. S. Lewis
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"My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. I don't really know what's happening down there. Who is the real hero?"

— Mitch Hedberg
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"Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger."

— Francis Quarles
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"Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another."

— Charles Caleb Colton
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