Cowardice Quotes - Page 10

• Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.

  Plutarch

  Enemy, Despise, Command

  Plutarch (2012). “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Complete”, p.371, Simon and Schuster

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• Nearly every man is a coward, if confronted by the proper terror.

  E. W. Howe

  Men, Coward, Terror

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• Milk-livered man,
  That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
  Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
  Thine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'st
  Fools do those villains pity who are punished
  Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
  France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,
  With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,
  Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries
  'Alack, why does he so?']

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Blow, Men

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• Such is the uncertainty of human affairs, that security and despair are equal follies; and as it is presumption and arrogance to anticipate triumphs, it is weakness and cowardice to prog-nosticate miscarriages.

  Samuel Johnson

  Miscarriage, Arrogance, Despair

  Samuel Johnson (1793). “The rambler”, p.263

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• There never was found a man who had courage to acknowledge himself a coward.

  Joseph R. Bartlett

  Men, Coward, Found

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• I think that there should be a Gaius Baltar Award for Moral Cowardice given out to people every year.

  James Callis

  Thinking, Awards, Years

  "Battlestar Galactica's James Callis". Interview with Chris Dahlen, www.avclub.com. June 12, 2008.

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• When we create hope and opportunity in the lives of others, we allow love, decency and promise to triumph over cowardice and hate.

  Kirsten Gillibrand

  Hate, Opportunity, Promise

  "Turning Tragedy Into Compassionate Action" by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 11, 2009.

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• Do not yield to Satan's enticements; rather, stand firm for truth. The unsatisfied yearnings of the soul will not be met by a never-ending quest for joy amidst the thrills of sensation and vice. Vice never leads to virtue. Hate never promotes love. Cowardice never gives courage. Doubt never inspires faith.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Hate, Yield, Giving

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• Cowardice is the greatest sin.

  Mikhail Bulgakov

  Sin

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• If you must run, have something to run toward, so it feels less like cowardice.

  Mark Lawrence

  Running, Feels, Ifs

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• I would have to point out in the strongest terms the autocracy of the Liberal structure and the cowardice of its members. I have never seen in all my examination of politics so degrading a spectacle as that of all these Liberals turning their coats in unison with their Chief, when they saw the chance to take power.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Coats, Examination, Saws

  "Cite libre" Journal, April 1963.

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• The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, War, Patriotic

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• The courage of one's opinions is always a form of calculating cowardice in the eyes of the "other side.

  Marcel Proust

  Eye, Sides, Opinion

  Marcel Proust (2016). “In Search of Lost Time: Or “Á la Recherche du temps perdu””, p.257, Jester House Publishing

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• Courage is defined as: the ability to face danger, difficulty, uncertainty, or pain without being overcome by fear or being deflected from a chosen course of action. Many of today's world leaders have great courage: I wonder... would we be better off with cowardice?

  Joshua Fernandez

  Pain, Leader, World

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• Children who wish to become good and great men or good and noble women, should try to know well all the people whom they meet. Thus they will find that there is no one who has not much of good; and when they see some great folly, or some meanness, or some cowardice, or some fault or weakness in another person, they should examine themselves carefully. Then they will see that, perhaps, they too have some of the same fault in themselves - although perhaps it does not come out in the same way - and then they must try to conquer that fault.

  Bram Stoker

  Children, Men, People

  Bram Stoker (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Bram Stoker (Illustrated)”, p.2484, Delphi Classics

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• For my part, I may speak it to my shame,
  I have a truant been to chivalry;
  And so I hear he doth account me too.

  William Shakespeare

  May, Speak, Chivalry

  William Shakespeare, Roma Gill (2002). “Henry IV”, p.108, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,
  Encompassed with thy lustful paramours,
  Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age
  And twit with cowardice a man half dead?

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Age, Half

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works”, p.963, Oxford University Press

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• Knowledge! What does that mean? Your knowledge is nothing but cowardice. No, really, that's all it is. You just want to put a little wall around infinity. And you're afraid to look on the other side of that wall.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Wall, Knowledge, Mean

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (1993). “We: New Edition”, p.52, Penguin

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• Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice.

  Evan Esar

  Credit, Conscience

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• In my view, Jan Masaryk was thoroughly corrupt, who bumped himself off because he saw at last where his moral cowardice and ideological 'Playboyery' had led him. I vividly remember visiting him in Washington, fat, slightly tight, coming into the room looking like a broken-down butler with his master, the little Communist, Clementis, - and saying in a loud voice: 'Has anyone seen an Iron Curtain? I haven't.' Well, he has now.

  Malcolm Muggeridge

  Suicide, Voice, Iron

  "Like it was: The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge". Book by Malcolm Muggeridge, p. 255, 1981.

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• Japan's biggest problems are conservatism and cowardice.

  Tadashi Yanai

  Japan, Problem, Conservatism

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• I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.

  Veronica Roth

  Weakness, Cruelty, Ferocity

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• Wherever it has been established that it is shameful to be involved with sexual relationships with men, that is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed.

  Plato

  Inspirational, Men, Evil

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• Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Atheist, Pain, Betrayal

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• No one's perfect," I whisper. "It doesn't work that way. One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces it." I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.

  Veronica Roth

  Perfect, Weakness, Way

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