Cowardice Quotes - Page 18

• Cynicism is a form of cowardice, a failure of courage to hope.

  Merle Shain

  Cynicism, Form

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• Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet.

  Winifred Holtby

  Writing, Wings, Long

  Winifred Holtby, Alice Holtby (1941). “Letters to a friend”

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• It is bad for the soul to know itself a coward, it is apt to take refuge in mere wordy violence.

  Radclyffe Hall

  Soul, Coward, Violence

  Radclyffe Hall (2016). “The Well Of Loneliness”, p.129, Radclyffe Hall

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• You are less majestically neutral than cloaking your cowardice in principle.

  George Hearst

  Principles

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• There is a schizophrenic nature in modern politics. A leader is expected to have a religious faith but he is not supposed to let it influence him in his duties. Somehow, the truths that determine everything else about his existence are not allowed to influence how he conducts himself in public life. Not only that, his principles are usually considered so personal that the public is not even allowed to know for certain what they are. This passes for noble statecraft in our time. It was once thought cowardice.

  Stephen Mansfield

  Religious, Leader, Principles

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• If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, War, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.313, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Father, Men, Bravery

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.255

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• Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Men, Envy

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• The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice; a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Men, Giving

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• All around me is cowardice and deceit.

  Nicholas II of Russia

  Deceit

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• The coward wants resolution, which the brave man can do without. He recognizes no faith above a creed, thinking this straw by which he is moored does him good service, because his sheet anchor does not drag.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Faith, Men, Thinking

  Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “Cape Cod and Miscellanies”

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• This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.

  Honore de Balzac

  Work, Pride, Mind

  "A Daughter of Eve". Book by Honoré de Balzac, 1839.

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• Fortune never helps the fainthearted.

  Sophocles

  Helping, Fortune

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• Nothing is more dastardly than to act with bravado toward God.

  Blaise Pascal

  God, Bravery, Bravado

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• It is from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.

  Stendhal

  Heart, Self, Enlightenment

  Stendhal (2015). “Amarance”, p.44, Stendhal

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• But, if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminodas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and had given that book immense fame.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Religious, Book, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.281, Modern Library

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• Lion is a beautiful creature. It's a wonderful creature. But it's easy outrage. And I also believe that this kind of outrage is a consequence of a moral cowardice in the face of other evil, that you transfer your impotence about other - in other arenas to this, because you know that people will agree with you that this is really bad, but there are serious outrages out there that are bigger than a lion.

  Greg Gutfeld

  Beautiful, Believe, People

  "Hollywood weighs in on Iran nuclear deal". "The Five" with Greg Gutfeld, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Julie Roginsky, Eric Bolling and Dana Perino, www.foxnews.com. July 29, 2015.

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• Falsehood is never better than truth, theft better than honesty, treachery better than loyalty, cowardice better than courage.

  Harry Emerson Fosdick

  Loyalty, Honesty, Exactness

  Harry Emerson Fosdick (1952). “A faith for tough times”

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• Nonviolence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice - nonviolence springs from love, cowardice from hate.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spring, Hate, Vices

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Glorious Thoughts of Gandhi: Being a Treasury of about Ten Thousand Valuable and Inspiring Thougths of Mahatma Gandhi, Classified Under Four Hundred Subjects”

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• Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice.

  Ayn Rand

  Character, Laughing, Vices

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.221, Penguin

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• Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is two people because it is a statement of the impasse of dualistic universe which he has created, they have created. I think that any dualistic universe ends in Nova. Mr. Bradley-Mr. Martin is a kind of God. A God of stupidity, cowardice, ugliness.

  William S. Burroughs

  Thinking, Two, People

  William S. Burroughs (2001). “Burroughs Live: The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs, 1960-1997”, Semiotext

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• In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin.

  Dean Koontz

  Self, Defense, Sin

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• I do not fight battles that cannot be won. Do not confuse that with cowardice.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Fighting, Battle

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2012). “The Drowned Cities: Number 2 in series”, p.84, Hachette UK

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• It is cowardice to commit suicide.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Suicide, Commit

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• True devotion must not get dispirited; nor elated or satisfied with lesser gains; it must fight against failure, loss, calumny, calamity, ridicule and against egoism and pride , impatience and cowardice .

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Fighting, Pride, Loss

  FaceBook post by Sri Sathya Sai Baba from Oct 27, 2016

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