"Never stop because you are afraid - you are never so likely to be wrong"
About this Quote
Fear is a poor adviser. Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian polar explorer, scientist, and humanitarian, compresses a lifetime of extreme decision-making into the warning that stopping because you are afraid is precisely when you are most likely to misjudge. He is not denying fear, or advocating reckless bravado. He is naming a cognitive hazard: when fear takes the wheel, perception narrows, risks inflate, and options shrink. You see only the immediate threat, not the broader terrain.
Nansen earned the right to say so. From the first crossing of Greenland on skis to the audacious drift of the ship Fram in polar ice, his survival depended on choosing under pressure. On the ice, panic can be fatal; stillness of mind keeps you alive. He and his companions often faced whiteouts, crevasses, and dwindling supplies. To halt simply because the heart is racing would be to misread both the environment and ones own capacity. Better to stop for reasons grounded in observation, calculation, or ethics than to let the tremor in your nerves masquerade as truth.
There is a deeper moral thread. Later, as a diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian, Nansen confronted political inertia and mass displacement after World War I. Fear of failure or controversy could have frozen his efforts. Instead, he acted, inventing the Nansen passport for stateless refugees and pushing institutions that preferred caution. Again, fear would have been the least reliable counselor.
The line draws a boundary between prudence and paralysis. Prudence tests the ice, checks the compass, revises the plan. Paralysis stops because the body feels afraid. Courage, then, is not the absence of fear; it is the refusal to let fear be the reason. The mind that pauses to think can be right or wrong; the mind that stops because it is afraid is, as Nansen says, never so likely to be wrong.
Nansen earned the right to say so. From the first crossing of Greenland on skis to the audacious drift of the ship Fram in polar ice, his survival depended on choosing under pressure. On the ice, panic can be fatal; stillness of mind keeps you alive. He and his companions often faced whiteouts, crevasses, and dwindling supplies. To halt simply because the heart is racing would be to misread both the environment and ones own capacity. Better to stop for reasons grounded in observation, calculation, or ethics than to let the tremor in your nerves masquerade as truth.
There is a deeper moral thread. Later, as a diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian, Nansen confronted political inertia and mass displacement after World War I. Fear of failure or controversy could have frozen his efforts. Instead, he acted, inventing the Nansen passport for stateless refugees and pushing institutions that preferred caution. Again, fear would have been the least reliable counselor.
The line draws a boundary between prudence and paralysis. Prudence tests the ice, checks the compass, revises the plan. Paralysis stops because the body feels afraid. Courage, then, is not the absence of fear; it is the refusal to let fear be the reason. The mind that pauses to think can be right or wrong; the mind that stops because it is afraid is, as Nansen says, never so likely to be wrong.
Quote Details
| Topic | Never Give Up |
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