“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
— Mark Twain
From 'Pudd'nhead Wilson' (1894), Chapter 12 epigraph. Twain wrote it after losing his fortune to the Paige typesetter and facing bankruptcy.
In 1894, the Paige typesetting machine, the invention I poured my fortune into, failed for the last time. I was bankrupt at fifty-eight, owing more than I had ever earned. I got on a ship and did a lecture tour around the world to pay back every creditor. Not because I was brave. Because I had no other choice. Fear does not leave. You just stop letting it steer.