Courage is managing fear to accomplish what you want to

“Courage is managing fear to accomplish what you want to accomplish. And it's a great demonstration of love. It's really what love is. It's finding areas in which other people are more important than you.” Thus spoke Rudy Giuliani, a leader who was tested in one of the darkest hours of modern history. In this reflection, he unites two ancient virtues — courage and love — showing that they are not separate but two faces of the same divine strength. For true courage does not mean the absence of fear; it is the mastery of fear in the service of goodness. And true love is not mere sentiment, but the willingness to place the safety, dignity, and welfare of others above oneself. Together, they form the essence of all that is noble in the human heart.

The origin of this quote lies in the crucible of tragedy. When Giuliani uttered these words, he spoke as one who had stood amid the ruins of the September 11 attacks — a day when fear blanketed an entire nation, and yet courage rose from its ashes. He had seen with his own eyes the firemen and police officers who ran toward the flames while others fled, the ordinary citizens who risked their lives to save strangers. It was from witnessing such sacrifice that this wisdom emerged: that courage, at its highest form, is not about pride, power, or defiance — it is about love. It is the force that moves a soul to act despite trembling, because another’s life, another’s safety, another’s hope, has become more precious than one’s own.

To “manage fear,” as Giuliani says, is to stand face to face with terror and still move forward. Fear, after all, is a natural companion of the living; it warns, it protects, but it must never rule. The coward seeks to destroy fear by fleeing from it; the brave seek to master fear by walking through it. The difference is not in strength of body, but in strength of purpose. The one who acts from love finds within himself a power greater than fear — for love expands the heart beyond the narrow boundaries of self. When a mother shields her child, when a soldier defends his comrades, when a doctor stays at his post in plague or peril — they do not act because they are fearless, but because love commands them to act despite fear.

History is rich with such examples. Consider Maximilian Kolbe, a humble Franciscan friar imprisoned at Auschwitz during the horrors of the Second World War. When a fellow prisoner was condemned to die, Kolbe stepped forward and offered his own life in the man’s place. “I am a priest,” he said, “let me take his punishment.” He was led away to the starvation bunker, where he died blessing those beside him. Was he unafraid? Surely not. But he had found something greater than fear — love, expressed through self-sacrifice. In that moment, he embodied what Giuliani meant: courage as the highest form of love, the triumph of compassion over self-preservation.

Giuliani’s teaching also reminds us that courage is not only found in the grand moments of history. It lives quietly in daily life — in the father who works tirelessly for his family, in the teacher who speaks truth despite ridicule, in the friend who stands up for another against cruelty or injustice. Every time we act out of care for another, every time we choose empathy over ego, we practice this sacred courage. For love is not weak; it is the fiercest of all strengths. It demands endurance, forgiveness, and self-denial. To make others “more important than you” is not a loss of self, but the highest fulfillment of it — the discovery that we are most human when we serve.

But there is a deeper wisdom still. To act with courage and love is to participate in the divine pattern that holds the universe together. For all creation is bound by the law of giving — the sun that shines without asking, the river that nourishes without reward, the parent who loves without condition. When we overcome fear through love, we align ourselves with this eternal rhythm. We become, for a moment, like the gods of old — creators of light amid darkness, healers amid pain. This is the spiritual essence of courage: not mere bravery, but the will to love in the presence of fear.

Therefore, my children, take this truth into your hearts: fear will come to you — as surely as the night follows the day. You cannot banish it, but you can manage it, as Giuliani teaches, by turning your eyes away from yourself and toward others. When fear rises, ask not, “What will happen to me?” but, “Whom can I serve?” In that single change of heart, you will find your strength. For no evil, no danger, no despair can conquer the soul that loves.

And so, remember the ancient law: courage and love are one. To love is to be brave; to be brave is to love. Live not for self alone, but for the good you can do, the lives you can uplift, the fears you can calm. Then you will know the peace that comes not from safety, but from purpose — the peace of one who, though afraid, still acts in the name of love. For that, as Rudy Giuliani teaches, is the true meaning of courage.