“The greatest weakness of all weaknesses is to fear too much to appear weak.”

— Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Politique tirée de l'Écriture sainte (1709)

About Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

1627 – 1704

French bishop and court preacher under Louis XIV.

“The world itself makes you sick of the world.”

“Faith is an adherence of the heart to eternal truth.”

“Heresies have never been more than particular opinions, since they began with five or six men.”

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”

“Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.”

“Courage is of the heart by derivation, and great it is. But fear is of the soul.”

“Nothing is terrible except fear itself.”