#Cowardice Quotes

“They that have voice of lions and act of hares,--are they not monsters?”

“That which in mean men we entitle patience is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.”

“O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?”

“I was a coward on instinct.”

“My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart so white.”

“Milk-livered man,That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerningThine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'stFools do those villains pity who are punishedEre they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries'Alack, why does he so?']”

“It is the cowish terror of his spirit that dares not undertake; he'll not feel wrongs which tie him to an answer.”

“Coward dogs most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten runs far before them.”

“This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh!”

“Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct.”

“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is slicked o'er with the pale cast of thought”

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

“Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin: shuts the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away with us; worse, shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart.”

“He is white-livered and red-faced.”

“O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!”

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

“Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind.”

“Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe”

“The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.”

“Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct.”

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

“Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.”

“It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”

“One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.”

“The coward is an object to be pitied.”

“Compared to the coward that never made the attempt, he is a hero.”

“To cowards what advice shall I offer? - nothing whatsoever have I to say.”

“Do not run away, it is cowardice.”

“We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.”

“Bullies are always cowards.”

“Our own selfishness makes us the most arrant cowards; our own selfishness is the great cause of fear and cowardice.”

“Cowardice is no virtue.”

“Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.”

“No man gains credit for his cowardly courtesies.”

“The coward, afraid of the lash, with one hand wipes his eyes and gives with the other. Of what avail are such gifts?”

“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.”

“Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin.”

“I hate cowardice; I will have nothing to do with cowards or political nonsense.”

“You gain nothing by becoming cowards.”

“Many a time comes when we want to interpret our weakness and cowardice as forgiveness and renunciation.”

“Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.”

“How superbly brave is the Englishman in the presence of the awfulest forms of danger and death; and how abject in the presence of any and all forms of hereditary rank.”

“Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.”

“The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice -- and always has been.”

“The thing that cowardice fears most is decision”

“For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice.”

“I can no more preach nonviolence to a cowardly man than I can tempt a blind man to enjoy healthy scenes.”

“We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.”

“So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice.”

“Humour is the most engaging cowardice. With it myself I have been able to hold some of my enemy in play far out of gunshot.”