The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.
Interpretation
True bravery is often found in those who face overwhelming challenges with grace and determination.
This quote reflects on the extraordinary courage displayed by a young boy battling a serious illness. Despite his circumstances, the boy exemplified bravery and a love for life, reminding us that real courage often shines through in the face of adversity, and it is a quality that can inspire us all.
In practice
During a motivational speech, you can share this quote to emphasize the essence of true courage.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
There are people who prefer to look their fate in the eye
And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they'll never stop doing, I think it's FEARLESS to stop believing them. It's FEARLESS to say "you're NOT sorry" and walk away.
What's important is that, when you're tested, you stand firm against the violent activities of those who would try to plunge our people back into the misery of the past.
The oppression of women knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but that does not mean it is identical within those boundaries.
I think that nonviolence is one way of saying that there are other ways to solve problems, not only through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means the recognition that the person on one side of the trench and the person on the other side of the trench are both human beings, with the same faculties. At some point they have to begin to understand one another.
A good girl in Afghanistan should be silent, should not talk about her future, should listen to your family, be like a doll so that everyone can play with her.
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