If you’ve ever wondered what real courage is, take a lesson from Atticus Finch - the famous character of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird - who is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. This acclaimed novel won the Pulitzer Prize, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film, and entered the canon of American literature soon after its publication.
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you are licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960
