Daily Inspiration Quote by Clare Boothe Luce

Courage, in Clare Boothe Luce's formulation, isn't one virtue among many; it's the infrastructure. The image does sly rhetorical work: a ladder implies ascent, effort, and risk. You climb rung by rung, exposed, with the possibility of a fall. That physical precariousness is the point. Luce reframes virtue as something athletic and situational, not a set of moral accessories you simply possess. Without the nerve to act under pressure, the other virtues stay decorative, stuck at ground level.

The line also carries a subtle challenge to the sentimental idea that goodness is mostly about purity of intention. Luce is insisting on execution. Patience, honesty, compassion, justice - all admirable, all easily performed when they're cost-free. Courage is what makes them real when they threaten your comfort, reputation, job, marriage, or social standing. The ladder metaphor quietly shames the armchair moralist: if you won't climb, your virtues aren't virtues; they're preferences.

Context sharpens the edge. Luce was a dramatist turned major political figure and war correspondent, someone fluent in performance and power. She moved through male-dominated rooms and public controversy, where moral choices were rarely private and never tidy. From that vantage, courage becomes the enabling virtue for anyone trying to live principles out loud, especially in arenas where the penalties are public.

It's a compact, stage-ready line: moral philosophy delivered as a prop. One object, one action, a whole ethic of risk.