Timidity Quotes - Page 4

• Youth is not a time of life - it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a tempermental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.

  Samuel Ullman

  Spring, Adventure, Mean

  "The Silver Treasury, Prose and Verse for Every Mood" by Jane Manner, (p. 323-24), 1934.

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• Timidity betrays want of powers, and audacity a want of skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.

  Hippocrates

  Two, Skills, Ignorant

  Hippocrates (1849). “The Genuine Works of Hippocrates”, p.785

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• We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

  Gore Vidal

  Average, Different, Way

  "Gore Vidal: What I've Learned". Interview with Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. August 1, 2012.

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• It is not the critic who counts

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Courage, Military, Failure

  Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 Apr. 1910. Richard M. Nixon quoted this passage in his address to the nation announcing his decision to resign the presidency, 8 Aug. 1974. See Theodore Roosevelt 1; Theodore Roosevelt 2; Theodore Roosevelt 5

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• Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile "gentle" because courageous.

  John Ruskin

  Courage, Race, Rude

  John Ruskin (1869). “Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation: Of invention formal. Of invention spiritual”, p.288

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• Nonviolence means an ocean of compassion. It means shedding from us every trace of ill will for others. It does not mean abjectness or timidity, or fleeing in fear. It means, on the contrary, firmness of mind and courage, a resolute spirit.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Ocean, Mean, Compassion

  Mahatma Gandhi (1986). “The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Civilization, Politics and Religion”, Clarendon Press

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• Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat; it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love.

  George Eliot

  Motherhood, Vanity, Self

  George Eliot (1876). “Scenes of clerical life”, p.267

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• I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'.

  Maya Angelou

  Regret, Ignorance, Years

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• Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.

  Poul Anderson

  Dangerous, Rashness

  Poul Anderson (2003). “Going For Infinity: A Literary Journey”, p.20, Macmillan

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• The doubts of love are never to be wholly overcome; they grow with its various anxieties, timidities, and tenderness, and are the very fruits of the reverence in which the admired object is beheld.

  Jane Porter

  Anxiety, Doubt, Overcoming

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• Timidity keeps me safe and sad in a narrow room.

  Mason Cooley

  Safe, Rooms

  "City Aphorisms: Eighth Selection". Book by Mason Cooley, 1991.

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• I speak French with timidity, and not flowingly--except when excited. When using that language I have often noticed that I have hardly ever been mistaken for a Frenchman, except, perhaps, by horses; never, I believe, by people.

  Mark Twain

  Horse, Believe, Speaks French

  Mark Twain (1992). “Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, Volume 1: 1852-1890”, p.1020, Library of America

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• Men insist that they don't mind women succeeding so long as they retain their "femininity". Yet the qualities that men consider "feminine" - timidity, submissiveness, obedience, silliness, and self-debasement - are the very qualities best guaranteed to assure the defeat of even the most gifted aspirant.

  Elizabeth Gould Davis

  Men, Self, Long

  "The First Sex". Book by Elizabeth Gould Davis. Chapter 22: "Woman in the Aquarian Age", 1971.

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• Most timidities have such secret compensations and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self depreciation.

  Edith Wharton

  Vanity, Self, Missing

  Edith Wharton (2012). “The House of Mirth”, p.16, Courier Corporation

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• Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

  William Zinsser

  Believe, Writing, Want

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• It has become a commonplace that aggressiveness also often has its roots in fear. I am inclined to think that this theory has been pushed too far. [...] The type of aggressiveness that is the outcome of timidity is not, I think, that which inspires great leaders; the great leaders, I should say, have an exceptional self-confidence which is not only on the surface, but penetrates deep into the subconscious.

  Bertrand Russell

  Self Confidence, Thinking, Roots

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.32, Routledge

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• We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.

  Will Durant

  Night, Government, Hands

  Will Durant (1929). “The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny”, Garden City, N.Y. : Garden City Publishing Company

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• Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and the obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease...

  Robert Kennedy

  Adventure, Yield, Imagination

  Robert F. Kennedy's Day of Affirmation Address at the University of Capetown, South Africa, www.mtholyoke.edu. June 6, 1966.

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• Let's start with some of the reasons that the press holds its tongue and some of the things that you don't know because of this. We'll begin with squeamishness, prudishness, timidity and an overdeveloped fear of offending someone... So much for squeamishness and prudishness. There are many other reasons that we editors fail you in this pact you and we have. Let me name a few more: Orthodoxy, conventional thinking, a misplaced pleasure at being on the inside, incompetence and laziness.

  Geneva Overholser

  Thinking, Offending, Editors

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• Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

  Robert Dallek

  President, Trouble, Johnson

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• Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Weakness, Sometimes

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• Think of it this way: There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.

  Robert Greene

  Thinking, Ideas, Two

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• Rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.

  Bill Maher

  Religious, Mirrors, People

  "Religulous". www.imdb.com. 2008.

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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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• Timidity has no place in a major action movie. You have to know how to take your moments. Sometimes walking out the door is just walking out the door. But when it's your moment, you have to go for it.

  Terry Crews

  Doors, Action, Sometimes

  Source: www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com

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