Courage defined

Many people mistakenly seem to equate the terms “courage” and “bravery” with an absence of fear. This is not the case. I remember free-fall parachuting five times to earn my jump wings in the Air Force, and there definitely WAS a fair amount of fear involved in those experiences! People who are brave are not fearless– that would be a superhuman quality. What brave and courageous people are able to do is manage their fears and act in intentional ways in spite of those fears. As Rudolf Giuliani said in reference to 9-11:

Courage is not the absence of fear…It is the active management of fear.

Quoted by D D Ganguly.