Courage.

What is it? I read a short story by Tolstoy today, that raised that question.
Per Wikipedia:
"Courage, also known as bravery, will, intrepidity, and fortitude, is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. "

It's one of those things that a lot of people have made quotes about through the years.
Churchill said: "Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
Aristotle said: "Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."

So, what is courage? Whatever it is, can I be defined as it?

Certain courage must be a good quality. Technical definitions aside, I think Churchill doesn't have it all right. I know people who really like his quotes, but to me they are soundbytes that held England together in war, and not nessesarily purely philosophical. Aristotle's point was that courage is a verb and you can only be courageous if you perform courageous acts.

Which to me is a big gray area. By thinking in contrary to popular views held by my peers, am I not courageous? Surely, in some scary time, thought itself may be courageous. So maybe thought isn't enough, for now.

When I think courageous, you normally think of you know, a man running through a hail of bullets to complete his mission. Yeah, it's defitely courageous, but I think we'd be wrong to stop courage at a purely physical level.

If I had to pick one person who I thought was the most courageous, I'd pick Martin Luther King, I think... Maybe to be continued.