To Kill a Mockingbird Courage Quotes

Jem wanted Dill to know once and for all that he wasn’t scared of anything: “It’s just that I can’t think of a way to make him come out without him gettin’ us.” Besides, Jem had his little sister to think of.
When he said that, I knew he was afraid.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 1. Dill accuses Jem of being scared. Jem tries to act like the older kid and Scout’s protective brother and show that he is brave when it comes to Boo Radley. Scout’s interpretation from Jem’s words is that he is afraid of Boo.

“Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard. Just think, I’ll have more room for my azaleas now!”
“You ain’t grievin’, Miss Maudie?” I asked, surprised. Atticus said her house was nearly all she had.
“Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin’ fire to it a hundred times myself, except they’d lock me up.”
“…Don’t you worry about me, Jean Louise Finch. There are ways of doing things you don’t know about. Why, I’ll build me a little house and take me a couple of roomers and – gracious, I’ll have the finest yard in Alabama. Those Bellingraths’ll look plain puny when I get started.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 8. When Miss Maudie’s entire house burns down she courageously looks on the bright side and shows Jem and Scout how to face adversity.

“Every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 9. Atticus Finch to daughter Scout, on the importance of him taking on the defense of black man Tom Robinson and showing moral courage. With his strong sense of justice and fair play, Atticus believes that every person has the right to proper representation in a court of law. He knows he cannot win, but it is important to him personally to show his children the right way to act and the right way to treat other people. He represents morality in Mockingbird.

“You know, she was a great lady.”
“A lady?” Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. “After all those things she said about you, a lady?”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11. Atticus to Jem on Mrs. Dubose, who has died. Though Mrs. Dubose, a morphine addict who was able to conquer that addiction with Jem’s help, could be racist and harsh, Atticus admired her courage in braving the pains of morphine withdrawal. To Jem she was a woman who said mean things about his father defending Tom Robinson.

“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’re 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, Chapter 11. Atticus to Jem after the death of Mrs. Dubose, whom Jem had been reading aloud to for the previous month. Atticus is a good father who wants to teach his children about courage. Mrs. Dubose was addicted to painkillers but was determined to overcome her addiction before dying and Atticus made Jem read to her to distract her from her pain. This also foreshadows that Atticus will take on the Tom Robinson case, knowing he has little chance of winning and angering many townspeople.

I pushed my way through dark smelly bodies and burst into the circle of light.
“H-ey, Atticus!”
I thought he would have a fine surprise, but his face killed my joy. A flash of plain fear was going out of his eyes, but returned when Dill and Jem wriggled into the light. There was a smell of pigpen about, and when I glanced around I discovered that these men were strangers. They were not the people I saw last night. Hot embarrassment shot through me: I had leaped triumphantly into a ring of people I had had never seen before.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 15. Atticus is not happy that Scout, Jem and Dill have come to see him at the jail house. This is evident from the flash of fear in his eyes on seeing them. A lynch mob has sent the sheriff off on a wild goose chase and wants to administer street justice to jailed Tom Robinson. The only thing standing between them and Tom is a courageous Atticus who refuses to move.

Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 15. Scout uses this tactic to distract and calm the angry mob confronting Atticus, determined to take “justice” into their own hands by breaking Tom Robinson out of jail and lynching him. She calls out to mob leader Walter Cunningham, a former client of Atticus, and talks about Mr. Cunningham’s legal entailments problem and his nice son who is a classmate of hers. Cunningham then ends the confrontation. Scout shows a special kind of courage here.

“Well, Atticus, I was just sayin’ to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it take a long time sometimes…that you all’d ride it out together…” I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed. Entailments seemed all right enough for livingroom talk.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 15. By talking in a very personal way to Walter Cunningham during a tense confrontation, Scout manages to humanize the mob intent on killing Tom Robinson, of which Cunningham is leader. She shows great courage here.

I looked around and up at Mr. Cunningham, whose face was equally impassive. Then he did a peculiar thing. He squatted down and took me by both shoulders.
“I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,” he said.
Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. “Let’s clear out,” he called. “Let’s get going, boys.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 15. Walter Cunningham calls off the mob that is intent on lynching Tom Robinson, when Scout cleverly and courageously engages in small talk about Cunningham’s son being a good boy – “Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won’t you?” Scout saves Tom Robinson’s life by this.

“So it took an eight-year-old child to bring ’em to their senses, didn’t it,” said Atticus. “That proves something – that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children…you children last night made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough.”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 16. An admiring Atticus Finch on how his courageous young daughter, with her innocent wisdom, managed to turn back the carloads of men who arrived in a mob to lunch Tom Robinson. And did it with some simple personal words to mob leader Mr. Cunningham about his son.

Gone was the terror in my mind of stale whiskey and barnyard smells, of sleepy-eyed sullen men, of a husky voice calling in the night, “Mr. Finch? They gone?” Our nightmare had gone with daylight, everything would come out all right.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 17. In the controlled environment of the courtroom, Scout no longer feels afraid. She recalls the nightmare of the mob that threatened Atticus and Tom Robinson, when she stood up for her father, began talking to the mob, and her courage saved the lives of Tom and possibly her father.

Mr. Link Deas rose from the audience and announced: “I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy’s worked for me eight years an’ I ain’t had a speck o’trouble outa him. Not a speck.”
“Shut your mouth, sir!” Judge Taylor was wide awake and roaring…”Link Deas,” he yelled, “if you have anything you want to say you can say it under oath and at the proper time, but until then you get out of this room, you hear me?…I’ll be damned if I’ll listen to this case again!”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 19. Link Deas courageously stands up in the public gallery during the trial of Tom Robinson and yells out in support of Tom. He earns a rebuke from the judge for his outburst and is sent out of the courtroom.

“His food doesn’t stick going down, does it?”

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 24. Miss Maudie says this sarcastically to Mrs Merriweather in defense of Atticus during Aunt Alexandra’s missionary tea. Mrs Merriweather has been subtly criticizing Atticus for being misguided in defending black man Tom Robinson. She is a hypocrite in that she criticizes Atticus without naming him, in his own house, while eating the food and refreshments he rovided for the tea party. Miss Maudie, never afraid and courageously speaking her mind, lets her know she strongly disagrees with her.

After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 24. Scout sees her Aunt Alexandra’s strength of character after Atticus tells her of the death of wrongly accused Tom Robinson. She is upset and angry at some of the women at her missionary circle tea who could have given support to Tom. But she composes herself and graciously serves them, repaying their selfishness with her kindness. The normally hotheaded Scout sees that having the courage and strength of a lady like her aunt has real value.

“Mr Arthur, bend your arm down here, like that. That’s right, sir.”
I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm.
He had to stoop a little to accommodate me, but if Miss Stephanie Crawford was watching from her upstairs window, she would see Arthur Radley escorting me down the sidewalk, as any gentleman would do.

– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 31. Scout shows her compassion and courage here as she realizes Boo Radley is not a monster he is made out to be by the local gossips, especially Stephanie Crawford. She walks home with him, allowing him to be her escort.
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