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Quotes About Cowardice

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
Hurtful words send the message—both to ourselves and to those with whom we share them—that we can't be trusted. If someone is willing to tear down one "friend," why wouldn't she be willing to disparage another? Gossip means we haven't emboldened ourselves to talk directly to the people we take issue with, so we belittle them. Playwright Jules Feiffer calls it committing little murders: Gossip is an assassination attempt by a coward.
~ Oprah Winfrey
They're so brave, she said. They're all dead. Only a coward would think of that, she said scornfully.
~ Orson Scott Card
Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.
~ Oscar Wilde
But nothing is crueler than a coward, and the slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining.
~ Cormac McCarthy
It was always himself that the coward abandoned first, after this all other betrayals came easily
~ Cormac McCarthy
The price of freedom is high — far higher than that of slavery. And it is not paid in gold, nor in blood, nor in the most noble sacrifices, but in cowardice, in prostitution, in treachery, and in everything that is rotten in the human soul.
~ Curzio Malaparte
Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.
~ Czes?aw Mi?osz
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.
~ Czeslaw Milosz
And voices in me said, if you were a man You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off. But must I confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the burning bowels of this earth? Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured? I felt so honoured.
~ D.H. Lawrence
Courage in war is safer than cowardice.
~ Proverb
You want a crime to torture yourself for, try cowardice . The only sin that ever mattered a shit is the shame that put us all here. Fuck, I didn't give you that power just so you could judge yourselves . I gave you the power so you could judge God .
~ Hal Duncan
I was a failure, a failure of the most disgraceful and cowardly kind. The thought was unbearable, and I began to play with the idea of not returning home at all, but of going out into the world, of submerging myself in the darkness somewhere, in some darkness where a man might disappear without trace, without a final cry.
~ Hans Fallada
We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind.
~ Charles Horton Cooley
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.
~ Oscar Wilde
Conciencia y cobardía son lo mismo realmente, Basil. La conciencia es el nombre comercial de la empresa. Eso es todo
~ Oscar Wilde
I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then - but I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid, and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape.
~ Oscar Wilde
Sumienie i tchórzostwo to to samo. Sumienie to po prostu nazwa firmowa. Nic wiÄ™cej.
~ Oscar Wilde
The funny thing is, I was never much of a fighter. Better a live coward than a dead hero, that was my motto.
~ Ozzy Osbourne
Filled with a coward rage that dares to burn but does not dare to blaze, Lord Emsworth coughed a cough that was undisguisedly a bronchial white flag.
~ P.G. Wodehouse
It would take more than long-stemmed roses to change my view that you're a despicable cowardy custard and a disgrace to a proud family. Your ancestors fought in the Crusades and were often mentioned in despatches, and you cringe like a salted snail at the thought of appearing as Santa Claus before an audience of charming children who wouldn't hurt a fly. It's enough to make an aunt turn her face to the wall and give up the struggle.
~ P.G. Wodehouse
I looked at him as he turned and walked away and I saw a man who'd learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, a coward without dignity or honour or respect
~ Pat Barker
Sloth is the great enemy -- the inspirer of cowardice, irresolution, self-pitying grief, and trivial, hairsplitting doubts. Sloth may also be a psychological cause of sickness. It is tempting to relax from our duties, take refuge in ill-health and hide under a nice warm blanket.
~ Patanjali
he sensed that suicide was a coward's escape, a ruthless act against those who loved him.
~ Patricia Highsmith