Cowardly Quotes - Page 8

There are times when it is more courageous to be cowardly.

Norman Reilly Raine

Courageous

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Art is no longer snobbish or cowardly. It teaches peasants to use tractors, gives lyrics to young soldiers, designs textiles for factory women's dresses, writes burlesque for factory theatres, does a hundred other useful tasks. Art is as usueful as bread.

Azar Nafisi

Art, Writing, Giving

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I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour. But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.

Mahatma Gandhi

Believe, Order, Punishment

Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, V. Geetha (2004). “Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace”, p.158, Tara Publishing

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Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defense or for the defense of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right.

Mahatma Gandhi

Men, Self, Judging

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Corliss had never once considered the fate of library books. She'd never wondered how many books go unread. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an inconsiderate lover, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier.

Sherman Alexie

Mother, Book, Fate

Sherman Alexie (2013). “Ten Little Indians”, p.14, Open Road Media

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You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.

Studs Terkel

Atheist, Talking, Atheism

"Religion & Ethics Newsweekly", www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

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America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.

James A. Michener

Usa, America, Politics

James A. Michener (1970). “The Quality of Life”

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Small Man can be a very funny or a very tiresome Tour Companion, depending on how this kind of thing grabs you. He gambles, he drinks too much and he always runs away. Since the Rules allow him to make Jokes, he will excuse his behaviour in a variety of comical ways. Physically he is stunted and not at all handsome, although he usually dresses flamboyantly. He tends to wear hats with feathers in. You will discover he is very vain. But, if you can avoid smacking him, you will come to tolerate if not love him. He will contrive, in some cowardly way, to play a major part in saving the world.

Diana Wynne Jones

Running, Men, Play

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If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.

Cyril Connolly

Wisdom, Thinking, Lazy

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There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being killed by others

Lafcadio Hearn

Suicide, Men, Literature

Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.130, tredition

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Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

Voltaire

Marriage, Humorous, Being Single

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He is never cowardly.

Paulo Coelho

Life, Inspiration

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It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people.

Jean Chretien

People, Evil, September 11

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In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.

Ayn Rand

Men, Names, Mind

Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.817, Hamilton Books

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Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear.

Hunter S. Thompson

Fun, Giving Up, Believe

Hunter S. Thompson (2011). “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the F”, p.22, Simon and Schuster

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There must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance, said the Ellen Ward of my dream, that woman I hate and fear. I am sure she meant some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning together from the vertical which produces the false arch.

Wallace Stegner

Two, Hopeful, Brain

"Angle of Repose".

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Both gentleness and meekness are born of power, not weakness. There is a pseudo-gentlene ss that is effeminate, and there is a pseudo-meekness that is cowardly. But a Christian is to be gentle and meek because those are Godlike virtues... We should never be afraid, therefore, that the gentleness of the Spirit means weakness of character. It takes strength, God's strength, to be truly gentle.

Jerry Bridges

Christian, Character, Mean

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As to hanging, it is no great hardship. For were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so unfit the sea, that men of courage must starve.

Anne Bonny

Men, Sea, Pirate

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That adolescent me, the girl who was, as I remember her, insecure, unsure, dreaming, yearning, longing, that girl who was hard on herself, who was cowardly and brave, who was confused and determined-that girl who was me-still exists. I call on her when I write. I am the me of today-the person who has become a woman, a mother, a writer. Yet I am the me of all those other days as well. I believe in the reality of that past.

Norma Fox Mazer

Girl, Mother, Dream

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I should be the reigning champion. I punch a guy 300 times, he punches me a couple and they call him the champion? In what parallel universe does that make you the winner? I am the champion. I’ve been the champion. Anderson’s ribs have the exact same problem that his hands and his feet have, they’re attached to a cowardly person.

Chael Sonnen

Couple, Hands, Feet

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All this we see, and, therefore, instead of inanely repeating the old formula, "Respect the law," we say, "Despise law and all its Attributes!" In place of the cowardly phrase, "Obey the law," our cry, is "Revolt against all laws!"

Peter Kropotkin

Law, Phrases, Cry

"Law and Authority". "Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets". Book edited by Roger N. Baldwin, dwardmac.pitzer.edu. 1927.

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In the Great War, there is no room for the faint-hearted, the cowardly. A criminal or an anarchist will be better conditioned than a bourgeois, indecisive or cowardly man. They only need a push in the right direction. Only one who is born a hero or a warrior has a place in our order. Only the Lord of the Pure Will can march to the end, breaking in the gates of the City of Eternal Life. Because will, through its perseverance, creates the thing it contemplates. Only the Wild Hordes of Odin and Parsifal will achieve the Graal.

Miguel Serrano

Perseverance, War, Hero

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Staying aloof is not a solution, it is a cowardly evasion.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Staying, Evasion, Solutions

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It's not unsporting to thrash a cowardly cad,' said Simmons. 'Everyone knows you don't fight like a gentleman.' 'That might be called an oxymoron,' Ramses said. 'Oh--sorry. Bad form to use long words. Look it up when you get home.' The poor devil didn't know how to fight, like a gentleman or otherwise.

Barbara Mertz

Sorry, Home, Fighting

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Don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.

William Deresiewicz

Mistake, Play, Stronger

"What Are You Going to Do With That?". Essay adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May 2010, www.chronicle.com. October 03, 2010.

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