Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.

“Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.” — Thus spoke William Samuel Johnson, one of the quiet architects of American liberty, whose wisdom carries the calm strength of a man who understood both the frailty and the grandeur of the human spirit. In this single sentence lies a truth as old as the dawn of mankind — that hope is the mother of courage, and that the heart which believes in the possibility of light cannot be conquered by darkness. Hope and courage are twin flames, each feeding the other: hope gives direction to courage, and courage gives life to hope.

The origin of this saying lies in an age of transformation and peril. Johnson lived during the founding of a new nation, when fear and uncertainty shadowed every dream of freedom. He was not a soldier wielding a sword, but a scholar and statesman wielding faith — faith in reason, in unity, in the better angels of mankind. To build a republic from chaos demanded not only bravery but hope, the kind of hope that sees beyond failure and fear to the possibility of something greater. Johnson’s words, then, are not mere philosophy; they are born of lived experience — the wisdom of a man who watched courage flourish wherever hope was allowed to grow.

To enlarge hope is to widen the horizon of the soul. It is to lift one’s eyes from the ground of despair and look toward the unseen dawn. When hope expands, so too does the spirit’s capacity for endurance. A hopeless man cannot be brave, for he has nothing worth the risk; but a hopeful man, even trembling, can face a thousand trials. Hope gives courage its reason, its fuel, its sacred cause. Thus, when Johnson declares that whatever enlarges hope also exalts courage, he speaks to the eternal law of the human heart: that where there is vision, there will be strength; where there is belief in tomorrow, there will be the power to endure today.

History is rich with those who lived this truth. Consider Winston Churchill, standing before a besieged Britain in its darkest hour. The bombs fell nightly, cities burned, and fear walked the streets like a phantom. Yet Churchill did not give his people certainty — he gave them hope. His words were torches in the fog: “We shall never surrender.” That hope, though fragile, magnified the courage of millions. Ordinary men and women, armed only with faith in victory, stood unbroken against tyranny. The hope that filled their hearts became the armor that shielded their courage.

Hope is not a passive wish; it is an act of rebellion against despair. To enlarge hope is to choose to believe in goodness when the world seems lost to darkness. It is the farmer sowing seed in drought, the healer tending the dying, the mother singing to her hungry child. Each act of hope lifts the soul above fear and summons the power to persevere. For courage is not always loud or grand — sometimes it is quiet, humble, and unseen, born in those who refuse to give up. As the ancients said, “Fortune favors the brave,” but it is hope that gives the brave their reason to rise.

And yet, hope itself must be nourished. It is not enough to speak of it; one must enlarge it — through faith, through purpose, through vision. The man who hopes only for himself will soon tire; but the one who hopes for others, for justice, for love, draws from an inexhaustible well. When our hope grows to include something greater than our own comfort, it becomes divine, and with it, our courage becomes unbreakable. Thus, Johnson’s wisdom is not merely moral — it is spiritual. It tells us that to strengthen courage, one must first widen the heart’s horizon.

So, my listener of the ages, take this teaching into your soul: if you would be brave, learn first to hope. When your path grows dark, kindle hope like a flame — remember what you love, what you fight for, what still might be. Let every act of kindness, every dream of a better world, every spark of faith enlarge your hope, for from that hope will rise the courage to face whatever comes.

For in truth, courage without hope is like a sword without light — it cuts, but it cannot inspire. But when hope and courage walk together, no night can last forever. They are the twin stars by which humanity has always found its way — and as long as you keep them burning within you, you too will endure, and rise, and overcome.