Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage. — Anaïs Nin · Smartyfair

Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.

Anaïs Nin1903–1977 · writer · 1900s France & USAAnaïs Nin was a French-American writer best known for her extensive personal diaries, kept for over sixty years, which explored her inner life, relationships, and creativity with remarkable honesty.7 quotes

Source not found yetCourage1900s

In plain words

Being brave makes your life bigger. Staying scared makes it smaller.

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Where these words come from

How sure this is: Lots of sources credit Anaïs Nin with this, and they agree with each other. The book or the speech it first came from hasn't turned up yet.
What turned up: Only found sourced to French Writers of the Past (2000) by Carol A. Dingle — a posthumous quote-compilation book (Nin died 1977), not a primary Nin work. Held at likely per the posthumous-compilation rule.
Sources checked: en.wikiquote.orgChecked using claude-sonnet-5, 21 August 2026Cites French Writers of the Past (2000), p. 126 — a compilation, not a Nin primary text
archive.orgChecked using claude-fable-5, 21 August 2026Diary of Anais Nin vol. 3 (publ. 1969, in her lifetime) located on archive.org, lending-restricted. Open wording question: diary may print 'in proportion to' vs our 'according to' — unresolved until page-check.

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More from Anaïs Nin

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Anaïs Nin We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.

Anaïs Nin I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.

Anaïs Nin You cannot save people, you can only love them.

Anaïs Nin The dream has to be translated into reality.

Anaïs Nin The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.

More on courage

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Marcus Aurelius You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

Rabindranath Tagore Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

Mahatma Gandhi For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.

Seneca If you see what is right and fail to act on it, you lack courage.

Confucius Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Marcus Aurelius