Cowardice Quotes - Page 11

• For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice.

  Plato

  Plato, Men, Dwelling

  Plato (2015). “The Complete Plato”, p.166, Booklassic

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• Pacifism is simply undisguised cowardice.

  Adolf Hitler

  Pacifism

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• Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.

  Primo Levi

  Country, Roots, Air

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• When we renounce our dreams, we find peace and enjoy a brief period of tranquillity, but the dead dreams begin to rot inside us and to infect the whole atmosphere in which we live. What we hoped to avoid in the Fight -disappointment and defeat- become the sole legacy of our cowardice.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Dream, Disappointment

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• Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the worst kind of cowardice.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Kind, Worst, Angry

  Rudyard Kipling (1920). “The Jungle Book”, p.274

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• The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in a cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of habits and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or onto fresh ground.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Buddhist, Air, Cocoons

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• The only way to vanquish cowardice is to brandish courage.

  Charles M. Blow

  Way, Vanquish

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• Hanging a noose on my door reeks of cowardice and fear on many, many levels.

  Madonna Ciccone

  Doors, Levels, Nooses

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• What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Envy, Fortune, Dismayed

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• A first lesson in the fragility of love and the preternatural cowardice of men. And out of this disillusionment and turmoil sprang Beli's first adult oath, one that would follow her into adulthood, to the States and beyond. I will not serve.

  Junot Diaz

  Men, Adults, Fragility

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• The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice -- and always has been.

  Mark Twain

  Soul, Patriotism, Substance

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.350, Courier Corporation

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• Because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total - but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.

  Daniel Berrigan

  Peace, War, Heart

  Daniel Berrigan (2007). “No Bars to Manhood: A powerful, personal statement on radical confrontation with contemporary society”, p.57, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• One night when my longing for her was like a fire burning out of control in my heart and my head, I wrote her a letter that just seemed to go on and on. I poured out my whole heart in it, never looking back to see what I'd said because I was afraid cowardice would make me stop. I didn't stop, and when a voice in my head clamored that it would be madness to mail such a letter, that I would be giving her my naked heart to hold in her hand, I ignored it with a child's breathless disregard of the consequences.

  Stephen King

  Love, Dream, Children

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• I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death.  All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which is the same thing.

  Corey Stoll

  Real, Believe, Paris

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• Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral. Try to be moral, try to be brave, try to be sympathising.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Motivational, Children, Lying

  Swami Vivekananda (1964). “Complete Works”

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• Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.’… ‘Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite.’… ‘Those who blamed duplicity created Candor.’… ‘Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.’… ‘And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.

  Veronica Roth

  Ignorance, Duplicity, Selfishness

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• Seek the truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues: courage, zest and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, “From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth – O God of truth, deliver us.

  Hugh B. Brown

  Prayer, Thinking, Zest

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• It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of slavery. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.

  Frederick Douglass

  Long, Rose, Forever

  Frederick Douglass (2013). “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

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• Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!

  John Brown

  Tired, Hearing, Caution

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• For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself.

  Henri Matisse

  Influence, Sincerity, Avoided

  Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold, Henri Matisse (1987). “Matisse, the graphic work”, Rizzoli International Publications

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• It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  True Evil, Rejection, Atrocities

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• Mans most disagreeable habits and idiosyncrasies, his deceit, his cowardice, his lack of reverence, are engendered by his incomplete adjustment to a complicated civilisation. It is the result of the conflict between our instincts and our culture.

  Sigmund Freud

  Deceit, Culture, Conflict

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• I was struck by the joy of those pilots in committing coldblooded murder . . . Frankly, this is not cojones. This is cowardice.

  Madeleine Albright

  Joy, Cojones, Pilots

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• If we were bees, ants, or Lacedaemonian| warriors, to whom personal fear does not exist and cowardice is the most shameful thing in the world, warring would go on forever. But luckily we are only men — and cowards.

  Erwin Schrodinger

  Warrior, Men, Forever

  Erwin Schrodinger (2012). “What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches”, p.102, Cambridge University Press

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• Superstition would seem to be simply cowardice in regard to the supernatural.

  Theophrastus

  Superstitions, Regard, Seems

  Theophrastus (1870). “Θεοφραστου Χαρακτηρες”, p.163

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