Cowardice Quotes

See also Core English Vocabulary (C) Quotes

(1970, when accepting the Screen Writers Guild Laurel Award) The blacklist was a time of evil, and no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil. Caught in a situation that had passed beyond the control of mere individuals, each person reacted as his nature, his needs, his convictions, and his particular circumstances compelled him to. There was bad faith and good, honesty and dishonesty, courage and cowardice, selflessness and opportunism, wisdom and stupidity, good and bad on both sides. When you who are in your 40s or younger look back with curiosity on that dark time, as I think occasionally you should, it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims. Some suffered less than others, some grew and some diminished, but in the final tally we were all victims because almost without exception each of us felt compelled to say things he did not want to say, to do things that he did not want to do, to deliver and receive wounds he truly did not want to exchange. That is why none of us - right, left, or center - emerged from that long nightmare without sin.

- Dalton Trumbo

Call it enlightened cowardice, if you like. Actually, over the years I discovered that I just didn`t enjoy flying, and I became aware of compromised safety margins in commercial aviation that are never mentioned in airline advertising. So I decided I`d rather travel by sea, and take my chances with the icebergs (...) I am afraid of aeroplanes. I`ve been able to avoid flying for some time but, I suppose, if I had to I would. Perhaps it`s a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. At one time, I had a pilot`s licence and 160 hours of solo time on single-engine light aircraft. Unfortunately, all that seemed to do was make me mistrust large aeroplanes.

- Stanley Kubrick

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi

Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it`s cowardice.

- George Jackson

These new crimes are hardly surprising to those of us who recognized the fraud behind the war from the very beginning and the vote obstruction in the 2004 national election. As the mountain of evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors has grown, so has the cowardice of the Democratic Party leadership.

- Michael Berg

Don`t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

- Samuel Johnson

To be one`s self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.

- Irving Wallace

At the bottom of not a little of the bravery that appears in the world, there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they have not the courage to face public opinion.

- Alberto Adrianzen

Cowardice and courage are never without a measure of affectation. Nor is love. Feelings are never true. They play with their mirrors.

- Ali Fabbro

There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice.

- Allie Savarino

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

- Aly Hinton

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

- Aly Hinton

We ought instead of retreating should follow up the enemy and take Richmond. And in full view of all responsible for such declaration, I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason.

- Amy Henderson

Christians take Scriptures out of context to try to justify or to vindicate retreat and cowardice.

- Amy Newman

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

- Andre Grjebine

Humility is not cowardice. Meekness is not weakness. Humility and meekness are indeed spiritual powers.

- Andres Macias

Every clique is a refuge for incompetence. It fosters corruption and disloyalty, it begets cowardice, and consequently is a burden upon and a drawback to the progress of the country. Its instincts and actions are those of the pack.

- Ashley Reynolds

Cowardice... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

- Ernest Hemingway

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

- Ayn Rand

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.

- Mark Twain

The standard that a society should actually embody its own professed principles is a utopian one, in the sense that moral principles contradict the way things really are --- and always will be. How things really are --- and always will be --- is neither all-evil nor all-good but deficient, inconsistent, inferior. Principles invite us to do something about the morass of contradictions in which we function morally. Principles invite us to clean up our act; to become intolerant of moral laxity and compromise and cowardice and the turning away from what is upsetting: that secret gnawing of the heart that tells us that what we are doing is not right, and so counsels us that we`d be better off just not thinking about it.

- Susan Sontag

Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live

- Charles Caleb Colton

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

- Confucius

Strength is Happiness. Strength is itself victory. In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness. When you wage a struggle, you might win or you might lose. But regardless of the short-term outcome, the very fact of your continuing to struggle is proof of your victory as a human being.

- Daisaku Ikeda

The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.

- Dr. Robert Anthony

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.

- Hosea Ballou

If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I`m a coward.

- Jack Handy

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

- Mahatma Gandhi

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

- Rollo May