Cowardice Quotes - Page 21

• Classic is our daring, classic our cowardice. Classic is our cruelty, classic our charity.

  Robert Ardrey

  Charity, Classic, Cruelty

  Robert Ardrey (1977). “The Hunting Hypothesis: A Personal Conclusion Concerning the Evolutionary Nature of Man”

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• The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity or rather the cowardice of the faithful.

  Pope Pius X

  Catholic, Faithful, Church

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• In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Confidence, Comfort, Bottles

  Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British Poets”, p.66

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• For peace, with justice and honor, is the fairest and most profitable of possessions, but with disgrace and shameful cowardice, it is the most infamous and harmful of all.

  Polybius

  Peace, Justice, Honor

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• The trouble is that nonviolence is so often defined as refusal to fight, and that is the American definition of cowardice. In fact, marching unarmed against the guns and dogs of the police requires more courage than does aggression. The perverted idea of manhood coming from the barrel of a gun is what keeps people from understanding nonviolence.

  Jesse Jackson

  Dog, Fighting, Gun

  Interview with Arthur Kretchmer, www.playboy.com. October 14, 2011.

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• Fear has its use, but cowardice has none. I may not put my finger into the jaws of a snake, but the very sight of the snake need not strike terror into me.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Sight, Snakes, Needs

  Mahatma Gandhi (1958). “Collected Works”

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• I often say to people that producing is the best paid form of cowardice. When you produce things you almost always get credit, if it's a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it's not! You don't really take responsibility for your work.

  Brian Eno

  Responsibility, People, Credit

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. November 2, 2009.

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• You disappoint yourself more often by not doing things because of cowardice and temerity than you ever did by doing things that turn out to be wrong.

  Fred Hollows

  Disappoint, Turns

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• Each of us has his cowardice. Each of us is afraid to lose, afraid to die. But hanging back is the way to remain a coward for life. The Way to find courage is to seek it on the field of conflict. And the sure way to victory is willingness to risk one's own life.

  Mas Oyama

  Risk, Victory, Coward

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• How many times did someone have to run in front of a machine gun before it became an act of cowardice?

  Michael Herr

  Running, Gun, Machines

  Michael Herr (2011). “Dispatches”, p.66, Vintage

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• Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe : the former is disturbing

  Abraham Maslow

  Honesty, Generosity, Common Sense

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• There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together.

  Thomas Paine

  Book, Sleep, Nurse

  Thomas Paine (1830). “The Theological Works of Thomas Paine: To which are Added the Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar”, p.123

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• The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility, in a word all the qualities of the canaille

  Karl Marx

  Humility, Self, Quality

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (1963). “The Communist manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels”

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• What we want is not mainly to colonize Nebraska with free men, but to colonize Massachusetts with free men-to be free ourselves. As the enterprise of a few individuals, that is brave and practical; but as the enterprise of the State, it is cowardice and imbecility. What odds where we squat, or bow much ground we cover? It is not the soil that we would make free, but men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Men, Odds

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.135, David M Gross

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• Perfect courage and utter cowardice are two extremes which rarely occur.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Two, Perfect, Extremes

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• Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Suicide, Pain, Complaining

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.584, Delphi Classics

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• I hold it cowardice To rest mistrustful where a noble heart Hath pawned an open hand in sign of love.

  William Shakespeare

  Heart, Hands, Noble

  William Shakespeare, John D. Cox, Eric Rasmussen (2001). “King Henry VI Part 3: Third Series”, p.306, Cengage Learning EMEA

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• Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the same fair play and admits no foolish distinction. Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Courage, Sex, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.59, BookBaby

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• The recommendation by the Arkansas Supreme Court Disciplinary Committee that President Clinton be disbarred is like a tender green shoot of integrity rising from the stinking junkyard of American public life. At last, some official body has come to a decision about Clinton's conduct that is untainted by politics, cowardice or cynicism.

  Mona Charen

  Integrity, Decision, President

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• Such is the nature and make-up of the French that they are only good at the start. Then they are worse than devils, but, given time, they're less than women.

  Francois Rabelais

  Courage, War, Devil

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• Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. Mindless may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion.

  Richard Dawkins

  New York, People, Leader

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• To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Self, Stupidity, Pay

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.274, Stanford University Press

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• This is one of the stout-hearted old warriors: he is angry with civilization because he supposes that its aim is to make all goodthings--honors, treasures, beautiful women--accessible even to cowards.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Beautiful, Courage, Warrior

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• Now must we sing and sing the best we can,
  But first you must be told your character:
  Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.

  William Butler Yeats

  Character, Coward, Firsts

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.170

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• Without the blessing of cowardice, the world would long since have been torn to bits.

  Mason Cooley

  Blessing, Long, World

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