Quotes About Cowardice

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

Rashness is oftener the resort of cowardice than of courage.

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

If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it.

They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener.

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.

It seems priggish or pollyannaish to deny that my intention in writing the work was to titillate the nastier propensities of my readers. My own healthy inheritance of original sin comes out in the book and I enjoyed raping and ripping by proxy. It is the novelist’s innate cowardice that makes him depute to imaginary personalities the sins that he is too cautious to commit for himself.

We shall never know how many acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of appearing not sufficiently progressive.

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.

Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.

We know how often in our lives through laziness and cowardice we give up the battle and try to hypnotise our minds into the belief that we are brave.

The age-old and noble thought of 'I will lay down my life to save another,' is nothing more than cowardice.

The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.

To change one's religion under the threat of force is no conversion but rather cowardice.

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.

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.

Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.

Where choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence ... I prefer to use arms in defense of honor rather than remain the vile witness of dishonor.

Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter.

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.

Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.

Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.

To tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to avoid deserved punishment--are all the blackest of black lies.

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.

Alec would have said he could have benefited from a bit more in the way of constructive cowardice.

Fascism, in so far as it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism - born of a renunciation of struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.

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.

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.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk.

Bravery despite defeat is praiseworthy. Victory despite cowardice is beyond praise.