Audacity

Audacity is an insolent form of boldness, especially when imprudent or unconventional. It implies a degree of impudence, but also fearlessness and intrepid daring.

Sourced

• Sara Bellum: Even you will have to appreciate the sheer boldness of my caper, Carmen. I'm going to steal the famous Giant of the Atacama!

Zack: That's the largest representation of a human figure in the world!

Sara Bellum: Perfect for the new larger-than-life Queen of Crime herself - Me!

Ivy: You've activated the solar furnace!

Sara Bellum: And it's already collected enough power to run the super grow lights I've invented!

Zack: You're going to grow a tropical rainforest in the desert? Why?

Sara Bellum: You know, for a kid genius, Zack, you sure are dumb as a wall! The moisture that evaporates will fill the clouds. Then I'll use the Spruce Goose to carry a massive cloud seeding machine that will drop salt crystal that will help it rain, rain, rain!

[laughs]

Ivy: Do you know what would happen if that much precipitation fell in the driest place in the world?

Sara Bellum: Well, let me think, Ivy. Ah-ha! For one thing I'll be able to float the giant away on massive pontoons and pull of the grandest crime in history!

[laughs more]

Carmen Sandiego: Well, Sara, I see working alone you took the most rational route, unfortunately - the bridge is out.

Sara Bellum: The beauty of it is that if I succeed, I can tell the police that I did it and the police will find you here - happy to lock you away for all your past, oh, so petty crimes! "Where on Earth is Sara Bellum?" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

• Sam Graham and Chris Hubbell, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, When it Rains (March 4, 1995).

• "Oh?" she said. "So you have decided to revise my guest list for me? You have the nerve, the – the –" I saw she needed helping out. "Audacity," I said, throwing her the line. "The audacity to dictate to me who I shall have in my house." It should have been "whom", but I let it go. "You have the –" "Crust." "– the immortal rind," she amended, and I had to admit it was stronger, "to tell me whom" – she got it right that time – "I may entertain at Brinkley Court and who" – wrong again – "I may not."
  • P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing (1960), chapter XVIII.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 46.

• La crainte fit les dieux; l'audace a fait les rois.
  • Fear made the gods; audacity has made kings.
  • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, during the French Revolution.

• Questa lor tracotanza non è nuova.
  • This audacity of theirs is not new.
  • Dante Alighieri, Inferno, VIII. 124.

• De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace.
  • Audacity, more audacity, always audacity.
  • Danton during the French Revolution. (See also Carlyle, The French Revolution, Volume II. 3. 4).

• Audax omnia perpeti
  Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.
  • The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.
  • Horace, Carmina, I. 3. 25.

• Audendo magnus tegitur timor.
  • By audacity, great fears are concealed.
  • Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, IV. 702.

See also

• Candor