Quotes & Sayings About Cowardice And Bravery

Bravery is a mean state concerned with things that inspire confidence and with things fearful ... and leading us to choose danger and to face it, either because to do so is noble, or because not to do so is base. But to court death as an escape from poverty, or from love, or from some grievous pain, is no proof of bravery, but rather of cowardice. — Aristotle.

Retreat itself is often a plan of resistance and may be a precursor of great bravery and sacrifice. Every retreat is not cowardice which implies fear to die. — Mahatma Gandhi

All that blood and ... stuff. Me, I'll take intelligent cowardice over foolhardy bravery any day — A.C. Crispin

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and perceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and last some crisis shows what we have become. — Brooke Foss Westcott

But often life asks much of you, and you either honor life by answering with all your heart, or you cower your way into your grave. — James Clemens

To incessantly blame others for my shortcomings is cowardice borne of fear, fed by fear, and haunted by fear. To be steadfastly accountable for my shortcomings is bravery borne of God, fed by God, and blessed by God. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

He knew what his father thought: that immigration, so often presented as a heroic act, could just as easily be the opposite; that it was cowardice that led many to America; fear marked the journey, not bravery; a cockroachy desire to scuttle to where you never saw poverty, not really, never had to suffer a tug to your conscience; where you never heard the demands of servants, beggars, bankrupt relatives, and where your generosity would never be openly claimed; where by merely looking after your wife-child-dog-yard you could feel virtuous. Experience the relief of being an unknown transplant to the locals and hide the perspective granted by journey. Ohio was the first place he loved, for there at last he had been able to acquire poise
— Kiran Desai

I am no coward sir! I shall stand and fight!"
"Well, I am," said Sal. "So can we go ... please? — Alex Scarrow

I once knew a man who was heir to the throne of a great kingdom, he lived as a ranger and fought his destiny to sit on a throne but in his blood he was a king. I also knew a man who was the king of a small kingdom, it was very small and his throne very humble but he and his people were all brave and worthy conquerors. And I knew a man who sat on a magnificent throne of a big and majestic kingdom, but he was not a king at all, he was only a cowardly steward. If you are the king of a great kingdom, you will always be the only king though you live in the bushes. If you are the king of a small kingdom, you can lead your people in worth and honor and together conquer anything. And if you are not a king, though you sit on the king's throne and drape yourself in many fine robes of silk and velvet, you are still not the king and you will never be one. — C. JoyBell C.

He who fights with guns and knives is a coward! For how easy is it to kill with the single pull of a trigger? And how does human flesh stand to a sharpened metal? Even an idiot can kill with a gun and a knife! A man needs no courage at all to stand behind these things that make him feel invincible and bigger than he ever will be! I don't say that no one should fight! Because battles must be fought, and wars will always be won! But let those who fight, fight with bare hands! The measure of true strength! With his hands and feet and nothing but! The country with truly strong men is able to have soldiers that need not a knife, that need no guns! And if you can soar even higher than that; fight with your pens! Let us all write! And see the substance of the man through his philosophies and through his beliefs! And let one philosophy outdo another! Let one belief outlast another! And let this be how we determine the outcome of a war! — C. JoyBell C.

You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others. — Henry Rollins

Fear breeds cowardice, and cowardice compels bravery. — Ogwo David Emenike

I abstain from the people who consider insolence bravery and tenderness cowardice. And I abstain from those who consider chatter wisdom and silence ignorance. — Kahlil Gibran

Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising; cowardice always is. — Mahatma Gandhi

I tell you, old friend, I'd rather be stuck here in a Strander burrow than blowing smoke rings in Glipwood, where the Fangs spit and howl and kill our spirits. At least we're here because we choose to be. We're here out of bravery and not cowardice. — Andrew Peterson

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. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion is the better part of valor, so was cowardice is the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a closet. — Douglas Adams

If you don't make a few ememies now and then, you're a coward-or worse. Besides, it as worth it to see his reaction. Oh, he was angry!
- Angela to Eragon — Christopher Paolini

The past is devoid of meaning like the present, and a refuge for cowards. — E. M. Forster

The world is ruled by cowards and cravens; brave men have put them there. — Damon Meredith

Cowardice is for cowards. Fear is for people with brains and eyes and functioning nerve endings. — Katherine Rundell

A coward,' he declared with dignity, when he'd stopped coughing and had got his breath back, 'dies a hundred times. A brave man dies but once. But Dame Fortune favours the brave and holds the coward in contempt.'
-
Dandelion — Andrzej Sapkowski

You can't throw kindling on a fire and deny you kept it burning. And right now, cowardice is that kindling. — Ilana Waters

Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere
"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly, — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of 'dissenting' bravery. — Christopher Hitchens

Are there any two words in all of the English language more closely twinned than courage and cowardice? I do not think there is a man alive who will not yearn to possess the former and dread to be accused of the latter. One is held to be the apogee of man's character, the other its nadir. An yet, to me the two sit side by side on the circle of life, removed from each other by the merest degree of arc. (MARCH - Chapter 11 - page 168) — Geraldine Brooks

Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice. — John Steinbeck

He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart, his passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship, to die with us. — William Shakespeare

Mission motto, sir," said Carrot cheerfully. "Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it."
"I imagine he did," said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. "And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr Rincewind?"
"Er ... " Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. "Er ... roughly speaking, it means, 'We who are about to die don't want to', sir. — Terry Pratchett

The emotion of nonviolence was building in him until it became a prejudice like any other thought-stultifying prejudice. To inflict any hurt on anything for any purpose became inimical to him. He became obsessed with this emotion, for such it surely was, until it blotted out any possible thinking in its area. But never was there any hint of cowardice in Adam's army record. Indeed he was commended three times and then decorated for bravery. — John Steinbeck

The problem about cutting out the best of your heart and giving it to people, is that 1. It hurts to do that; and 2. You never know if they are going to throw it away or not. But then you should still do it. Because any other way is cowardice. At the end of the day, it's about being brave and we are only haunted by the ghosts that we trap within ourselves; we are not haunted by the ghosts that we let out. We are haunted by the ghosts that we cover and hide. So you let those ghosts out in that best piece of your heart that you give to someone. And if the other person throws it away? Or doesn't want it to begin with? Someone else will come along one day, cut out from his/her heart that exact same jagged shape that you cut out of your own heart, and make their piece of heart fit into the rest of yours. Wait for that person. And you can fill their missing piece with your soul. — C. JoyBell C.