Cowardly Quotes & Sayings

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here. — Paulo Coelho

Her voice was so melancholy that Gansey was struck all at once by what he and Blue really lost by keeping their relationship a secret. Blue radiated psychic energy for others, but touch was where she gained hers back. She was always hugging her mother or holding Noah's hand or linking her elbow in Adam's or resting her boots on Ronan's legs as they sat on the sofa. Touching Gansey's neck just between his hair and his collar. This worry in her tone demanded fingers braided together, arms on shoulders, cheeks rested against chests.
But because Gansey was too cowardly to tell Adam about falling in love with her, she had to stand there with her sadness by herself.
Aurora took Blue's hand. — Maggie Stiefvater

The most cowardly thing in the world is blaming mistakes upon the umpires. Too many managers strut around on the field trying to manage the umpires instead of their teams. — Bill Klem

A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. — Elbert Hubbard

If you go to the city of Washington, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of congress, and mis-representatives of the masses claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks. — Eugene V. Debs

You charming idiot. — Gregory Maguire

This crude, cowardly bargain seems not to have unduly bothered Hitler. If Mussolini was personally attracted to him, as Ciano said, by "something deeply rooted in his make-up," it might be said that the attraction was mutual, for the same mysterious reasons. Disloyal as he had been to some of his closest associates, a number of whom he had had murdered, such as Roehm and Strasser, Hitler maintained a strange and unusual loyalty to his ridiculous Italian partner that did not weaken, that indeed was strengthened when adversity and then disaster overtook the strutting, sawdust Roman Caesar. It is one of the interesting paradoxes of this narrative. — William L. Shirer

Everybody has questioned my heart, questioned my training ethics, this and that, but I never did something as cowardly as to take any sports-enhancement drug ... That's one thing no one can ever say about me, you know? That I was a coward and took sports-enhancement drugs, because I was afraid I was going to get my a** kicked in front of millions of people. So anybody out there who said I never had no heart, at least I wasn't a coward. — B.J. Penn

My tongue is what I used instead of my fists because I was a small and cowardly young man. Amusing people with stories and being bizarre with words was my way of getting out of fixes. — Jim Crace

Peter sighed into the water, and his breath sent a small circle of it into tiny ripples. "It seems cowardly, getting old. Don't you think?"
She rolled onto her side to look at him, pillowing her ear with her right arm, and letting her fingers dangle in the water beyond her head. "How is it cowardly?"
Peter kept his eyes on his reflection. "You just curl up around yourself, and sit by the fire, and try to be comfortable. When you get old, you just get smaller inside, and you try not to pay attention to anything but your blankets and your food and your bed."
"Being comfortable is not a bad thing."
Peter shrugged and turned his head to look at her as if it was a matter of fact. "Of course it is. Old people lock out all the scary, wild things. It's like they don't exist."
She wanted to say that she would have liked for those things not to exist, either, but she held her tongue, because she didn't want to sound like a coward. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

I learned regret in the ruins of Tarbfhlaith. I regretted that ambition had ruled my heart instead of affection for my kin. And with the lesson of regret came the gratitude for having life still to move my lips and limbs, and to speak kind words to and embrace those I may not see again on this sweet-smelling earth. I learned that I cannot wait to love what is in my presence, for it or I may well be gone tomorrow. To some, such as Giannon, this lesson poisons the heart with bitterness. But such bitterness has no value and is, in fact, cowardly. For bitterness risks nothing. — Kate Horsley

Imposing limitations on yourself is cowardly because it protects you from having to try, and perhaps failing. — Vladimir K. Zworykin

But the long tunnels of art through which I walked in Rome that day had no ragged edges, cowardly colors, or shades of pastel that didn't know what to do with themselves. The wisdom, perfection, and beauty of the colors and forms I passed were more than enough, in their collectivity, to hint at the principles which govern the hereafter, whatever that may be. Indeed, even a detail of one painting can offer solid direction in this regard if one knows how to look — Mark Helprin

We must be neither cowardly nor rash but courageous. — Aristotle.

Shy South comes home to her farm to find a blackened shell, her brother and sister stolen, and knows she'll have to go back to bad old ways if she's ever to see them again. She sets off in pursuit with only her cowardly old step-father Lamb for company. But it turns out he's hiding a bloody past of his own. None bloodier. Their journey will take them across the lawless plains, to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feuds, duels, and massacres, high into unmapped mountains to a reckoning with ancient enemies, and force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, a man no one should ever have to trust ... — Joe Abercrombie

A cowardly populace which will dare nothing beyond talk.
[Lat., Vulgus ignavum et nihil ultra verba ausurum.] — Tacitus

This is what e-mail is: either a cowardly way for people to ask favors of you that they would never ask in person, or a way for people to pretend they are having a friendship with you when they really are not. — Dean Bakopoulos

A people of scholars, if they are physically degenerate, weak-willed and cowardly pacifists, will not storm the heavens, indeed, they will not be able to safeguard their existence on this earth. — Adolf Hitler

The American people are not cowardly. But, living in prosperous isolation, they have been the spoiled children of modern history. — Herman Wouk

Don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person. — William Deresiewicz

France is hypocritical and cowardly. I sometimes think that, having been invaded by the Germans, we'd be run better today. — Emmanuel Petit

Your highest patriotism today is to respect the memory of those who have died in the uniform of their country by vowing that it will never happen again. The basest treason is to permit yourself to shamefully and cowardly follow the false patriots into another war, one surely bringing in its wake even greater disasters for our beloved America than any before. — Willis Carto

To retaliate against the relatives of the co-religionists of the wrong-doer is a cowardly act. — Mahatma Gandhi

But as far as true goodness was concerned, that didn't exist - not in the land of cowardly men. — Paulo Coelho

In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nowadays, I only review books I really like. It's cowardly, I know, but I figure it's not my job to make people unhappy. I'll leave that to the professionals. — Meg Rosoff

There are two types of optimism, real optimism and fake, cowardly optimism. Real optimism sees the Valley of Dry Bones and says, 'These bones will rise!' Fake, cowardly optimism says, 'I like these bones. Dry bones are so very artistic to look at. — Fiorella De Maria

I don't know one thing about the future. I don't know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don't know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love. — Eugene H. Peterson

To elope is cowardly; it is running away from danger, and danger has
become so rare in modern life. — Oscar Wilde

When I'm brave and strong, and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person. And when I'm cruel, cowardly, or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone less worthy, and I can't respect myself. That's the divine retribution I believe in — Ken Follett

The "thesis neurosis" has begun: the student abandons the thesis, returns to it, feels unfulfilled, loses focus, and uses his thesis as an alibi to avoid other challenges in his life that he is too cowardly to address. This student will never graduate. — Umberto Eco

But secluding my experience during that early period was both cowardly and wise. Some things are too fragile, too vulnerable to bring into the public eye. Tender things with tiny roots tend to wither in the glare of public scrutiny. By holding my awakening within, I contained the energy of it, and it fed me the way blood feeds muscle. It fed me a certain propelling energy, and I kept moving forward. — Sue Monk Kidd

There is a time when to avoid trouble is to store up trouble, and when to seek for a lazy and a cowardly peace is to court a still greater danger. — William Barclay

We are fighting for the distinction between sacrifice and mysticism, between energy and violence, between strength and cruelty, for that even finer distinction between the true and the false, between the man of the future and the cowardly gods you revere. — Albert Camus

I'd used people's stories and their lives to bolster my political arguments for changing welfare. Now, however, I was running into the people themselves, and I realized that using anyone's tragedy for political gain was cowardly. — David Kuo

Warriors of light always have a certain gleam in their eyes.
They are of this world, they are part of the lives of others, and they set out on their journey with no saddlebags and no sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always make the right decisions.
They suffer over the most trivial things, they have mean thoughts, and sometimes believe that they are incapable of growing. They frequently deem themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle.
They are not always quite sure what they are doing here. They spend many sleepless nights, believing that their lives have no meaning.
That is why they are warriors of light. Because they make mistakes. Because they ask themselves questions. Because they are looking for a reason - and are sure to find it. — Paulo Coelho

When people do the cowardly thing, it's not about respect, it's about fear. — Salman Rushdie

I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsover for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise. — James Cameron

The Stoics forbid this emotion to their sages as being base and cowardly. — Michel De Montaigne

My reading as a child was lazy and cowardly, and it is yet. I was afraid of encountering, in a book, something I didn't want to know. — John Updike

It requires courage to make a frontal attack on nature through the broad planes and the large lines and it is cowardly to do it by the facets and details. It is a battle. — Edgar Degas

There is a cowardly propensity in the human heart that delights in oppressing somebody else, and in the gratification of this base desire we always select a victim that can be outraged with safety. — James T. Rapier

You see what I mean? Being rich must be a condition, much like sickness or health. Say you are rich, you might, in some mysterious way, be rich forever, but however much money you have, you never feel properly rich. Maybe you need to believe in your wealth in order to be properly rich - I mean, the way saints and revolutionaries believe they are different. And you can't afford to feel guilty if you are rich: if you felt guilty for a second you'd be finished. The not-truly-rich, those who have visions of the poor while indulging in a beefsteak and drinking Champagne, will eventually lose out, because they are insincere in their wealth. They're not rich out of conviction, they are only pretending, cowardly, sneakily, to be rich. You have to be very disciplined to be rich. You can perform a few charitable acts, but only as a kind of a fig leaf. — Sandor Marai

There is a killer in every cowardly man, waiting for the right set of circumstances when the time has been drained of the possibility of reprisals and he feels free to act. — M.D. Lachlan

A penalty is a cowardly way to score. — Pele

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly. — Voltaire

I was stricken by news and television pictures coming from the United States this morning. It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault upon thousands of innocent people. There can be no cause or grievance that could ever justify such unspeakable violence. Indeed, such an attack is an assault not only on the targets but an offense against the freedom and rights of all civilized nations. — Jean Chretien

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen. — Herodotus

There are no heroes, Tian Haoli. Grand Secretary Shi was both courageous and cowardly, capable and foolish. Wang Xiuchu was both an opportunistic survivor and a man of greatness of spirit. I'm mostly selfish and vain, but sometimes even I surprise myself. We're all just ordinary men - well, I'm an ordinary demon - faced with extraordinary choices. In those moments, sometimes heroic ideals demand that we become their avatars. — Ken Liu

I am an Imperial commissar. I will enflame the weak, support the wavering, guide the lost. I will be all things to all men who need me. But I will also punish without hesitation the incompetent, the cowardly, and the treasonous.
Ibram Gaunt — Dan Abnett

To those who wish to punish others
or at least to see them punished, if the avengers are too cowardly to take matters in to their own hands
the belief in a fiery, hideous hell appears to be a great source of comfort. — Steve Allen

I sometimes think I prefer suitors in books rather than right in front of me. How awful, backward, cowardly, and mentally warped that will be if it turns out to be true. — Mary Ann Shaffer

To live in books is cowardly
but people are not worth investigation. — Lily Koppel

The great move mountains;
the cowardly hide behind them.
The extraordinary walk on water;
the mediocre drown on land.
The excellent perform miracles;
the inferior carry out mischief. — Matshona Dhliwayo

There might be cheats or possible cheats amongst them, men who beat their wives, men with perverse instincts, greedy men, cowardly men, lying men; but the elegance of the room invested each one with a kind of aristocracy. — Ian Fleming

Raeanne
Mirror, Mirror

When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.
Her right is my left, double
moles, dimple and all.
My right is her left,
unblemished.

We are exact
opposites,
Kaeleigh and me.
Mirror image identical
twins. One egg, one sperm
one zygote, divided,
sharing one complete
set of genetic markers.

On the outside we are

the same. But not
inside. I think
she is the egg, so
much like our mother
it makes me want to scream.
Cold.
Controlled.

That makes me the sperm
I guess. I take completely
after our father.
All Daddy, that's me.
Codependent.
Cowardly.

Good, bad. Left, right.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne.
One egg, one sperm.
One being, split in two.

And how many
souls? — Ellen Hopkins

Of a man who only wills the Good out of fear of punishment, it is necessary to say with special emphasis, that he fears what a man should not and ought not to fear: loss of money, loss of reputation, misjudgment by others, neglect, the world's judgment, the ridicule of fools, the laughter of the frivolous, the cowardly whining of consideration, the inflated triviality of the moment, the fluttering mist-forms of vapor. — Soren Kierkegaard

To not do what you can to protect someone, that's cowardly. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

Ah, ah, no buts. You've just returned to us and it is too soon to express whatever doubts you undoubtedly have with that most cowardly of words, that qualifier of qualifiers, but. — Frank Beddor

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. — Oscar Wilde

And I recognized then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. The only way I could overcome this was to trick myself with that other self, who lived in dream and fantasy and who was annoyingly lackadaisical and unpractical. All passion, no sense, no order, no instinct for self-preservation. That's what I had done, and now that cowardly self had discovered an unburnt bridge by which to return to the past. As Renata Adler writes in Speedboat: I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort. — Robyn Davidson

Corliss had never once considered the fate of library books. She'd never wondered how many books go unread. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an inconsiderate lover, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier. — Sherman Alexie

Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual. — Cyril Connolly

This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie - no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's too cowardly, and besides, I don't have the courage. [on why he hadn't killed himself yet] — Nick Drake

Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned. — Ignazio Silone

When I look at him, I don't see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and i don't hear the excuses he gave afterward.
When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is
smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind. — Veronica Roth

Adam and Ronan lurked in the hall, eavesdropping, too cowardly to face Calla's wrath. — Maggie Stiefvater

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate. — Michel De Montaigne

Amid the stirring and manifold activities of the age in which we live, to be neutral in the strife is to rank with the enemies of the Saviour. There is no greater foe to the spread of His cause in the world than the placid indifferentism which is too honorable to betray, while it is too careless or too cowardly to join Him. — William Morley Punshon

You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist. — Studs Terkel

On December 29, 1890, Big Foot and two hundred or more unarmed Minnecojou men, women, and children, with a few fugitives from Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa band, were slaughtered by the Seventh Cavalry at Wounded Knee. Custer's former regiment, decimated by Indians at the battle of The Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn), was avenged. For this barbarous and cowardly act, 20 soldiers received Congressional Medals of Honor. — Antoinette Nora Claypoole

Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company. — Ben Horowitz

You're as cowardly as a g
weasel. You know that? A weasel. That's what you are."
"You don't know me," I say, spitting blood onto the dirt. I can't help it. I start to laugh. "And you obviously don't know much about weasels, either. — Holly Black

I look forward to a future of boredom and suffering, since I'm too cowardly to put an end to my days. I'll just go on: clubbing, snorting, drinking and persecuting the fools of the world. — Lolita Pille

I loathe it when they [English teachers] are bullied by no-nothing parents or cowardly school boards. — Pat Conroy

I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly. I get up early in the morning and go to work. I love to write. — David Mamet

The secret of the enjoyment of pleasure is to know when to stop. Man doesn't learn this secret easily, but to shun pleasure altogether is cowardly avoidance of a difficult job. For we have to learn the art of enjoying things BECAUSE they are impermanent. — Alan Watts

Why then should I often be unhappy over what happens here? Shouldn't I always be glad, contented and happy, except when I think about her and her companions in distress? I am selfish and cowardly. Why do I always dream and think of the most terrible things- my fear makes me want to scream out loud sometimes. Because still, in spite of everything, I have not enough faith in God. He has given me so much- which I certainly do not deserve- and I still do so much that is wrong every day. If you think of your fellow creatures, then you only want to cry, you could really cry the whole day long. The only thing to do is to pray that God will perform a miracle and save some of them. And I hope that I am doing that enough! — Anne Frank

That is such crap. How dare you be so fraudulently flirtatious, cowardly and dysfunctional? I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Goodbye. — Helen Fielding

South Africa used to seem so far away. Then it came home to me. It began to signify the meaning of white hatred here. That was what the sheets and the suits and the ties covered up, not very well. That was what the cowardly guys calling me names from their speeding truck wanted to happen to me, to all of me: to my people. That was what would happen to me if I walked around the corner into the wrong neighborhood. That was Birmingham. That was Brooklyn. That was Reagan. That was the end of reason. South Africa was how I came to understand that I am not against war; I am against losing the war. — June Jordan

To go on vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations, after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, that ought to prompt a profound contempt in society. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There's no such thing as being cowardly in a fight.

~Edward Elric — Hiromu Arakawa

I am surprised." She scanned the script rapidly. "Th-this is a p-pack of lies!" He looked worried. "Have you always had that little speech impediment?" he asked cautiously. "N-no, it's my souvenir from the Escobaran psych service, and the l-late war. Who came up with this g-garbage, anyway?" The line that particularly caught her eye referred to "the cowardly Admiral Vorkosigan and his pack of ruffians." "Vorkosigan's the bravest man I ever met." Gould took her firmly by the upper arm, and guided her to the shuttle hatch. "We have to go, now, to make the holovid timing. Maybe you can just leave that line out, all right? Now, smile. — Lois McMaster Bujold

words are empty if you're too cowardly to actually make your promises come true. — Alex Ashmore

The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit. — Isabelle Eberhardt

I am a coward. I am a cowardly coward, full of cowardice. — Alex Flinn

His grandfather probably would have said that all men feel fear, but cowardly men deny it. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

They who live without Love are dead. / But the worst of all deaths is this
/ That the loving soul be cowardly toward Love; / For perfect Love is never cowardly, / But claims its rights, which it lacks. — Hadewijch

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Warriors of the Light always have a certain gleam in their eyes. They are of this world. They are part of the lives of other people and they set out on their journey with no saddlebags and no sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always make the right decisions. They suffer over the most trivial things; they have mean thoughts and sometimes believe they are incapable of growing. They frequently deem themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle. They are not always quite sure of what they are doing here. They spend many sleepless nights, believing that their lives have no meaning. That is why they are Warriors of the Light. Because they make mistakes, because they ask themselves questions, because they are looking for a reason they are sure to find it. — Paulo Coelho

I hate wise men because they are lazy, cowardly, and prudent. To the philosophers' equanimity, which makes them indifferent to both pleasure and pain, I prefer devouring passions. The sage knows neither the tragedy of passion, nor the fear of death, nor risk and enthusiasm, nor barbaric, grotesque, or sublime heroism. He talks in proverbs and gives advice. He does not live, feel, desire, wait for anything. He levels down all the incongruities of life and then suffers the consequences. So much more complex is the man who suffers from limitless anxiety. The wise man's life is empty and sterile, for it is free from contradiction and despair. An existence full of irreconcilable contradictions is so much richer and creative. The wise man's resignation springs from inner void, not inner fire. I would rather die of fire than of void. — Emil Cioran

People use their leaders almost as an excuse. When they give in to the leader's commands they can always reserve the feeling that these commands are are alien to them, that they are the leader's responsibility, that the terrible acts they are committing are in his name and not theirs. This, then, is another thing that makes people feel so guiltless, as Canetti points out: they can imagine themselves as temporary victims of the leader. The more they give in to his spell, and the more terrible the crimes they commit, the more they can feel that the wrongs are not natural to them. It is all so neat, this usage of the leader; it reminds us of James Franzer's discovery that in the remote past tribes often used their kings as scapegoats who, when they no longer served the people's needs, were put to death. These are the many ways in which men can play the hero, all the while that they are avoiding responsibility for their own acts in a cowardly way. — Ernest Becker

The host thus forming a single united body, is it impossible either for the brave to advance alone, or for the cowardly to retreat alone — Sun Tzu

No, I'm not at all adventurous. I'm terribly cowardly. — Roger Moore

I'm very much against the anonymity of bloggers and social media. I just hate it and I think it's really cowardly. — Ice-T

Too many disciples neglect their thorn-like qualities. For instance: Opting for singleness doesn't count if you can't attract a mate. Patience doesn't count if you are too cowardly to defend what is right. Forgiveness doesn't count if the offender never respected you enough to ask for it. Don't label your character flaws as noble sacrifices.
pg 47 — Michael Ben Zehabe

People may indeed be treated as objects and may be profoundly affected thereby. Kick a dog often enough and he will become cowardly or vicious. People who are kicked undergo similar changes; their view of the world and of themselves is transformed ... People may indeed be brainwashed, for benign or exploitative reasons ...
If one's destiny is shaped by manipulation one has become more of an object, less of a subject, has lost freedom ...
If, however, one's destiny is shaped from within then one has become more of a creator, has gained freedom. This is self-transcendence, a process of change that originates in one's heart and expands outward ... begins with a vision of freedom, with an "I want to become ... ", with a sense of the potentiality to become what one is not. One gropes toward this vision in the dark, with no guide, no map, and no guarantee. Here one acts as subject, author, creator. — Allen Wheelis

It's a cowardly form of politics to use my spouse to beat me. — John Bercow

I should be the reigning champion. I punch a guy 300 times, he punches me a couple and they call him the champion? In what parallel universe does that make you the winner? I am the champion. I've been the champion. Anderson's ribs have the exact same problem that his hands and his feet have, they're attached to a cowardly person. — Chael Sonnen