Quotessence
Home / Topics / Cowardice Quotes

Cowardice Quotes

Browse 757 quotes about Cowardice.

Related topics

CowardMenIfsCouragePeopleWeaknessBraveryKnowsWorldFightingGivingBraveFearHumansMayThinkingViolenceDoeRunningMindEvilLongLyingSelfCowardlyDiesMoralVirtueWantWayInspirationalSinWarBelieveDangerFacesFormHas BeensHateHeartShouldSuicideUseLifePeaceVicesConscienceEasyFeelsForceLazinessPoliticalRunning AwaySoldierStupiditySufferingWellsDeathEnemyFirstsHeroLooksMeanMilitaryNamesNoblePersonsPridePrinciplesPrudenceSaidSelfishnessTryingWould BeBe BraveConformityCountryCrueltyDareFollyGainsHandsKindLawMankindRashnessRealRefugeSometimesSpeakTroubleValorVictory

Cowardice Quotes

“Before awakening, the order of the day brings quite the bite (or sting) - a find in light of dreams. Like nightmares' love supreme, phenomenology sings of the unconscious this highly common theme: '...Seeking sovereignty...Using fragments of things...The mind, it tries but pines...For a rise by false wings...And hides one's shortcomings...Behind the heights of these...Lofty philosophies...And faulty prophecies...' And that's the fall of kings.”

PhilosophyIdeologyDeceptionCowardCowardiceShortcomingsLack Of ResponsibilityLack Of DisciplineBad PhilosophyFalse Teacher
Author:Criss Jami
Create image

“And what does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil chuckle. "Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously reperforming this dull nonsense--to what end? No wisdom can guess! Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart--if you have one--you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the foundation upon which all civilizations have been built.”

ExistenceMastersCivilizationHypocrisyCowardiceMonarchsSlaves
Book:The Mysterious Stranger
Create image

“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. I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie; and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stick them in the ground, but they will never make them grow.”

PriestsCowardiceReposeNursesRefuteDebunkGreater ProphetsLess Prophets
Book:The age of reason
Create image

“Prior to the advent of military staffs, armies and navies made military decisions via councils of war, in which the commander would assemble his major subordinates, solicit and pitch courses of action, and seek a consensus on which one to pursue. Napoleon eschewed such meetings once he had enough rank to forego them, calling them "a cowardly proceeding" intended more to shift blame than to determine an effective plan.”

StrategyCowardiceTacticsNapoleonOperational ArtMilitary StaffMilitary CouncilsMilitary Planning
Book:On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines
Create image

“Young man, be of good courage. Care not for what the world says or thinks: you will not be with the world always. Can man save your soul? No. Will man be your judge in the great and dreadful day of account? No. Can man give you a good conscience in life, a good hope in death, a good answer in the morning of resurrection? No! no! no! Man can do nothing of the sort. Then "fear not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings: for the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool" (Isa. 51:7,8). Call to your mind the saying of good Colonel Gardiner: "I fear God, and therefore I have none else to fear." Go and be like him.”

LifeHeavenCourageHellCowardiceCourage QuotesFear Of GodYoung MenFear Of Men
Book:Thoughts for Young Men
Create image

“{From Luther Burbank's funeral. He was loved until he revealed he was an atheist, then he began to receive death threats. He tried to amiably answer them all, leading to his death} It is impossible to estimate the wealth he has created. It has been generously given to the world. Unlike inventors, in other fields, no patent rights were given him, nor did he seek a monopoly in what he created. Had that been the case, Luther Burbank would have been perhaps the world's richest man. But the world is richer because of him. In this he found joy that no amount of money could give. And so we meet him here today, not in death, but in the only immortal life we positively know--his good deeds, his kindly, simple, life of constructive work and loving service to the whole wide world. These things cannot die. They are cumulative, and the work he has done shall be as nothing to its continuation in the only immortality this brave, unselfish man ever sought, or asked to know. As great as were his contributions to the material wealth of this planet, the ages yet to come, that shall better understand him, will give first place in judging the importance of his work to what he has done for the betterment of human plants and the strength they shall gain, through his courage, to conquer the tares, the thistles and the weeds. Then no more shall we have a mythical God that smells of brimstone and fire; that confuses hate with love; a God that binds up the minds of little children, as other heathen bind up their feet--little children equally helpless to defend their precious right to think and choose and not be chained from the dawn of childhood to the dogmas of the dead. Luther Burbank will rank with the great leaders who have driven heathenish gods back into darkness, forever from this earth. In the orthodox threat of eternal punishment for sin--which he knew was often synonymous with yielding up all liberty and freedom--and in its promise of an immortality, often held out for the sacrifice of all that was dear to life, the right to think, the right to one's mind, the right to choose, he saw nothing but cowardice. He shrank from such ways of thought as a flower from the icy blasts of death. As shown by his work in life, contributing billions of wealth to humanity, with no more return than the maintenance of his own breadline, he was too humble, too unselfish, to be cajoled with dogmatic promises of rewards as a sort of heavenly bribe for righteous conduct here. He knew that the man who fearlessly stands for the right, regardless of the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, was the real man. Rather was he willing to accept eternal sleep, in returning to the elements from whence he came, for in his lexicon change was life. Here he was content to mingle as a part of the whole, as the raindrop from the sea performs its sacred service in watering the land to which it is assigned, that two blades may grow instead of one, and then, its mission ended, goes back to the ocean from whence it came. With such service, with such a life as gardener to the lilies of the field, in his return to the bosoms of infinity, he has not lost himself. There he has found himself, is a part of the cosmic sea of eternal force, eternal energy. And thus he lived and always will live. Thomas Edison, who believes very much as Burbank, once discussed with me immortality. He pointed to the electric light, his invention, saying: 'There lives Tom Edison.' So Luther Burbank lives. He lives forever in the myriad fields of strengthened grain, in the new forms of fruits and flowers, plants, vines, and trees, and above all, the newly watered gardens of the human mind, from whence shall spring human freedom that shall drive out false and brutal gods. The gods are toppling from their thrones. They go before the laughter and the joy of the new childhood of the race, unshackled and unafraid.”

LoveLifeInspirationalMindGodDeathJoyReligionHateHumanityEnergyForceHeavenChangeWealthFreedomCourageHellRichFireAcceptancePromiseElementsLaughterEternityTheologyImmortalityInfinityCowardiceThinkLovingGodsSuperstitionEulogyBribeRewardBettermentDogmaticBenefitMythicalTheologiansThomas EdisonEdisonLuther BurbankBurbankTom Edison
Author:Ben Lindsey
Create image

“Indeed, we came to make peace. But the mist came down upon us and when it rose, some trolls and dwarfs cried, “Ambush!” They fell to fighting and would not hear our commands. So troll fought troll, and dwarf fought dwarf, and fools made fools of all of us as we fought to stop a war, until the disgusted sky washed us away. “‘And yet we say this. Here, in this cave at the end of the world, peace is made between dwarf and troll, and we will march beyond the hand of Death together. For the enemy is not Troll, nor it is Dwarf, but it is the baleful, the malign, the cowardly, the vessels of hatred, those who do a bad thing and call it good. Those we fought today, but the willful fool is eternal and will say—’” “This is just a trick!” Ardent shouted. “‘—say this is a trick,”’ Bashfullsson continued, “‘and so we implore: come to the caves under this valley, where you will find us sharing the peace that cannot be braken.”

PeaceCowardiceMaliceValleyCubeThudKoom
Book:Thud!
Create image

“You’re not humble at this point. You are a coward. So is any man who doesn’t come out and tell his intentions to a woman he’s interested in—and hang all this ‘I’m not ready.’ God doesn’t work with ready people, people who refuse to take a risk, people who wait for the perfect circumstances to align before every forward step—you’re the one who taught me that.”

GodRomanceMarriageCowardiceMarriage QuotesChristian QuotesHistorical RomanceChristian FictionReadiness QuotesBiblical Marriage
Book:At Her Fingertips
Create image

“There was always a screen behind which one could hide— a superior who in turn had his superior— orders, instructions, duties, commands— and finally the many-headed monster, morale, necessity, hard reality, responsibility, or whatever it was called— there was always a screen behind which to evade the simple law of humanity.”

HumanityCrueltyIndifferenceMoralsCowardiceExcusesRulesPretense
Book:Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country
Create image

“Let us be clear: censorship is cowardice. ... It masks corruption. It is a school of torture: it teaches, and accustoms one to the use of force against an idea, to submit thought to an alien "other." But worst still, censorship destroys criticism, which is the essential ingredient of culture.”

StillsIdeasUseSchoolCultureForceTeachClearWorstEssentialsCriticismCorruptionAliensTortureMaskIngredientsCensorshipCowardiceSubmitUse Of Force
Author:Pablo Antonio Cuadra
Create image

“We have sworn, and not lightly. This oath we will keep. We are threatened with many evils, and treason not least; but one thing is not said: that we shall suffer from cowardice, from cravens or the fear of cravens. Therefore I say that we will go on, and this doom I add: the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda.”

SaidMatterLastsSufferingSongEvilOne ThingGoes OnAddDeedsCowardiceThreatenedDoomOathTreasonLast Day
Book:The Silmarillion
Create image

“It is true that so far as wealth gives time for ideal ends and exercise to ideal energies, wealth is better than poverty and ought to be chosen. But wealth does this in only a portion of the actual cases. Elsewhere the desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. There must be thousands of conjunctures in which a wealth-bound man must be a slave, whilst a man for whom poverty has no terrors becomes a freeman.”

MenGivingDoeEndsDesireEnergyLosesWealthPovertyCasesOughtExerciseGainsIdealsSlaveBoundsTerrorCorruptionChosenChiefsPortionsCowardiceElsewhereBe A SlaveFreemanBreeders
Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
Create image

“We do not choose to be born.We do not--most of us, choose to die, or the times or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live--Courageously or in cowardice, Honorably or dishonorably, With purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial. What makes us significant is what we DO, Or REFUSE TO DO. WE DECIDE and WE CHOOSE--and so we give definition to our lives.”

GivingImportantPurposeDiesBornOur LivesConditionsDefinitionsRefuseSignificantRealmsCowardiceAdrift
Author:Joseph Epstein
Create image

“If suicide be supposed a crime, it is only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence when it becomes a burden. It is the only way that we can then be useful to society, by setting an example which, if imitated, would preserve every one his chance for happiness in life, and would effectually free him from all danger or misery.”

IfsWayShouldChanceExistenceCrimeDangerExampleSuicideMiseryBurdenSettingSettingsPreservesCowardicePrudenceLife HappinessSetting An Example
Book:Essays: Moral, Political and Literary
Create image