G.K. Chesterton on "Courage"

I love this quote from one of C. S. Lewis's contemporaries, G.K. Chesterton. And it goes swell with what we're reading right now! Think about this (if it doesn't make your brain turn upside down) and then think about it in relation to the Iliad. We'll discuss it more in class!

So here's the quote:

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, will save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."