Cower Quotes & Sayings

Most will regret opening up the doors to truth, while others will cower at thought of living an illusion. In the end, does impracticality defeat curiosity? — Lionel Suggs

Understand your power. Live dangerously. Live fearlessly. Cower before no earthly master. Know yourself. Live truthfully. Live freely. Be yourself. Love yourself. — Bryant McGill

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination. — Edward Dahlberg

You'd think we're never going to die, the way we cower and second-guess and fret over each little action. — Johnny B. Truant

AMERICANISM, n. 1) The desire to purge America of all those qualities which make it a more or less tolerable place in which to live; 2) The ability to simultaneously kiss ass, follow your boss's orders, swallow a pay cut, piss in a bottle, cower in fear of job loss, and brag about your freedom. — Ambrose Bierce

Every persisting marriage is based on fear', said Peregrine. 'Fear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what's at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you to put the foot in it or whether it makes you to cower ... — Iris Murdoch

I don't like running away," Michael; brought his eyes from the floor to mine. "I don't run, I don't hide, I don't cower, I don't beg, Cassie, because running and hiding and begging doesn't work. It never works. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Go on," he offered magnanimously. "Feel free to piss on yourselves and
cower helplessly."
Gods, sometimes his generosity overwhelmed him. — G.A. Aiken

Charms and oaths and guardian spirits were all the product of a need for something to believe in because people didn't believe in themselves, a need to let problems resolve on their own rather than confront them. People were predominantly fearful of disruption, even of the things they found overbearing, even as they attempted to wish them away. It was why they invented heroes. It was why the world suffered through long periods of stagnation between innovations. Because rather than change the things that needed change, people preferred to cower and wait until a hero arrived to do it for them. Assuming by that point it was not already too late. — Sean DeLauder

Invade me now, my ruthless friend,
And make me cower in the dark.
Remind me that I'm all alone
And draw upon my face your mark.
How is it that you capture me,
When all my thoughts deny your force?
Is it the reptile in my brain
That lets your terror run its course?
Baseless Fear undoes us all
Despite our quest for lofty goals.
We would-be Galahads don't die,
Fear just freezes all our souls.
It keeps us mute when feeling love,
Reminding us what we might lose.
And if by chance we meet success,
Fear tells us which safe route to choose. — Arthur C. Clarke

Not everyone born free and equal, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man. Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. — Ray Bradbury

When you are not full of the Holy Spirit, you easily cower in fear and lack a stand on truth — Paul Gitwaza

Bury me and I'll thrive as countless insects.
I bend neither to your weapon nor will.
Even as you trample upon my bones I cower not under your soulless tread, or fear your shadow casting upon my grave. — Vaddey Ratner

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

Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke. — William C. Bryant

Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally "bright", did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. — Ray Bradbury

We are surrounded by monsters," she said. "We can cower before them or we can pick one and sink our teeth in with the aim to give it hell. — Eli Brown

Most bands, if something goes wrong, they cower and walk off stage and fire people. — Tom DeLonge

I have a really difficult time watching myself on film. I literally cower in my seat and cover my face. — Brooklyn Decker

Night came and fell hard.
Not like God drawing a blanket over our land
But like someone snuffing a candle.
Sudden and total.
Out - just like that.
Now we are waiting.
Waiting in the dark
To see if someone
Will switch on the light.
We can cower,
We can fear,
We can get lost together or
Get lost alone.
But the truth is:
I am the light. You are the light.
We are lit up together.
We are silhouettes of sunlight
cast against the night.
Shining now, let us
Shining, hold the light,
Shining, so that our families
Can find us.
Shining. — Emmy Laybourne

Because those who cower forget how to stand and, in time, can only crawl. — Dean Koontz

She folded her arms and then shouted, "Right you thieving scunners! How dare you steal Miss Treason's funeral meats!"
"Oh, waily, waily, it's the foldin' o' the arms, the foooldin' o' the aaaarmss!" cried Daft Wullie, dropping to the ground and trying to cover himself with leaves. Around him Feegles started to wail and cower and Big Yan began to bang his head on the rear wall of the dairy. — Terry Pratchett

Through the whirlwind, I hear my father's harsh whisper.
I know who you really are. Who will ever want you, Adelina?
My fury heightens. Everyone. They will cower at my feet, and I will make them bleed. — Marie Lu

My beloved son Thomas did caution, when first I set out to flow this tale upon the world, that although they may not be felt like a fist or a whip, words have a power that can nevertheless cower even the largest man to gibbering tears. — Andrea Levy

So easily she broke her word. The fire did not cower down nor the wind rise; her heart beat on quietly. Maybe it was more like a disease than an injury: the seed was sown but not yet sprouted. Perjury, shapeshifting: which was more mortal? — Pamela Dean

Am I a storm-waster? For it is within the fury of the very storms within which I cower that I find resources for my growth that are entirely absent on calmer days. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I'm pregnant! " (Cassidy)
"Your face isn't, and quite frankly, you need to be put in yiur place. You are no longer a child and playing petty games such as these should get you punished." (Ashling)
"My father is the mayor of this town!" (Cassidy)
"Run along to Daddy then, but don't expect me to frighten me when you're too much of a coward to fight your own battles against an opponent who will not cower before your nonexistent wrath." (Ashling) — Rosetta M. Overman

Will they cower?' Kym asked.

'Tons of cowering! Plus your name in the summer programme. A custom-designed banner. A cabin at Camp Half-Blood. Two shrines. I'll even throw in a Kymopoleia action figure.'

'No!' Polybotes wailed. 'Not merchandising rights! — Rick Riordan

Democracy is stronger than terrorism, and we will not cower to the terrorists' campaign of fear. — John Doolittle

Our people would rather go honorably in a fight against evil than cower under its hand." Raphael took a long, deep breath, his shoulders straightening and his head rising. "No one," he vowed, "will ever subjugate those who are our own. Never will we surrender. — Nalini Singh

Life is too short to cower. — Claire Cross

Most people who are struck by lightning learn to keep their heads down. It's only people like you who grit your teeth and then come out again, refusing to cower. That's what I can't understand about you. You've been struck by lightning, again and again, and still you stand up. I don't see how you are possible. — Courtney Milan

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world. — William Ellery Channing

I do not choose to be a common person. It is my right to be uncommon
if I can. I seek opportunity
not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the State look after me. I want to take the calculated risk
to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid, to think and to act for myself, to enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, This, with God's help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an Entrepreneur! — Thomas Paine

Don't worry. Don't apologize. Don't cower behind the defeated security of there is no 'room for someone like me'. There isn't room for any one of us. It's up to you to make a place for yourself in the world. So get to work. — Cheryl Strayed

Fear only has power when I cower under the illusion. — Poppet

Emerge; don't cower.
Endure; don't run.
Nurture; don't abandon — Raji Lukkoor

When we cannot see the sunshine of God's face, it is blessed to cower down beneath the shadow of his wings. — Charles Spurgeon

Our Father in Heaven does not wish us to cower. He does not want us to wallow in our misery. He expects us to square our shoulders, roll up our sleeves, and overcome our challenges. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

I don't want to live in a world where the strong rule and the weak cower. I'd rather make a place where things are a little quieter. Where trolls stay the hell under their bridges and where elves don't come swooping out to snatch children from their cradles. Where vampires respect the limits, and where the faeries mind their p's and q's. My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. When things get strange, when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights, when no one else can help you, give me a call. I'm in the book. — Jim Butcher

He must, therefore, be the model for everyone. He must be devoted entirely to the example of good living. He must be dead to the passions of the flesh and live a spiritual life. He must have no regard for worldly prosperity and never cower in the face of adversity. He must desire the internal life only. — Gregory The Great

Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished - only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina. — William L. Shirer

If you can fight, you don't have to fight. And you don't have to cower. And girls like that, whatever they say. — Martin Amis

I don't want to cower at somebody's interpretation of what I'm about. I'm supposed to be doing it and I'm going to throw this word out there-with excellence. There's no reason for me to give anything less that all I've got in everything I do. That's scriptural. For me, that's the foundation of who I am. — Mike Matheny

As long as the firmament of the You is spread over me, the tempests of causality cower at my heels, and the whirl of doom congeals.
The human being to whom I say You I do not experience. But i stand in relation to him, in the sacred basic word. Only when I step out of this do I experience him again. Experience is remoteness from You. — Martin Buber

I'm her slave, he imagined. Her toy. She owns me, completely. Again, like the bottle. Both Merry and the gin had proven harsh mistresses, but where Rob had once hid in the false comforts of his addiction, Merry's indulgence drew him out - made him feel wildly, vibrantly conscious, when alcohol had only deadened. The bottle had been a blanket to cower beneath. This . . . This was exposure, pure and sharp. — Cara McKenna

I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat — Dean Alfange

We need to do something about this now. There are things we can do." My hand curled into fists. "Like what?" "Well, the jumping jacks for ... an hour or so should do it" His gaze dropped. Something flickered in his eyes. "You may want to change first." The urge to cover myself was strong, but I resisted. I wasn't going to cower from him. "I'm not doing jumping jacks for an hour." "Then you could run around the house, up and down the stairs." He paused, his smug grin turning wicked as his eyes met mine. "We could always have sex. I hear that uses up a lot of energy." My mouth dropped open. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

It was one of those somber evenings when the sighing of the wind resembles the moans of a dying man; a storm was brewing, and between the splashes of rain on the windows there was the silence of death. All nature suffers in such moments; the trees writhe in pain and twist their heads; the birds of the fields cower under the bushes; the streets of cities are deserted. — Alfred De Musset

Though here's a tip, though. Just 'ho, ho, ho' will do. Don't say, 'Cower, brief mortals' unless you want them to grow up to be moneylenders or some such. — Terry Pratchett

She swept her knife through the first shade, as Grandmother had taught. Never creep back and cower before shades. You're Forescout blood. You claim the Forests. You are their creature as much as any other. As am I ... — Brandon Sanderson

We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. — Ray Bradbury

Tell the President to stand up to our enemies, not cower to them or make excuses for them! — Jim Gilmore

You can cower," she told them in a clear voice, wrapping her long shaking fingers around the cold iron bars. "But I will stand. — Gwenn Wright

...from this day on, whenever he sought to master a woman, whether by threat or strength or even with a look, the fear would flare and overtake him -- so wild and sudden it would drop him to his knees to cower in terror, gibbering for solace from his distant, punishing god. — Laini Taylor

This wasn't the way I had imagined my adventures, but reality ignored my wishes from the get-go, giving me a body best suited for stacking books in the library, injecting so much fear into my veins that I could only cower in the stairwell when the violence came. Maybe someday my arms and legs would thicken with muscle and the fear would drain away like dirty bathwater. I wish I believed these things would happen, but I didn't. — David Benioff

Yes, cower! If you simpletons truly understood what you have just seen, you would be down on your knees worshipping me! HA! HA HA HA HA HA! — Richard Roberts

Faith doesn't grow or deepen when we cower in secrecy. Faith strengthens as we go public. — James MacDonald

How many more times are we going to cower under tables and chairs, whimpering like mindless dogs, thinking that someone else has the responsibility to save and protect us? — Ted Nugent

Create space in your mind for the harsh memories too. Don't ever cower from a teacher. Learn and live higher because you know how to use those dark memories as stepping-stones to think your way to a higher form of living. — Toni Sorenson

No!" Shawn whispered harshly. "If you want to break and run then that's your affair. But I've never known you to cower in the corner when there was a perfectly good opportunity to get yourself killed lurking around the next turn. — Abigail Roux

Only love can free us from fear. Fear causes us to cower in the shadows; Love allows us to dance in the sunlight. — Donald L. Hicks

Action separates the heroes from the cowards, the achievers from the complainers, the successful from the mere dreamers, the happy from the envious; it separates those who rise to the challenge of their goals from the haters who cower in the shadow of stagnancy. — Steve Maraboli

It was time to stand up for herself and move forward, not cower in submission as other people made bad decisions for her. — Angie Stanton

We stand strong, or we cower. We emerge victorious, tempered by our , or fractured by a permanent, damming fault line. — Karen Marie Moning

In the three boats story, a man is floating alone in an ocean without a life jacket when a boat passes by. "Get in. I'll save you," the boatman says. "Oh, no, it's fine," the floating man answers, "I'm putting my faith in the Lord." In time, two more boats come along, and to each rescuer the man - usually me, in Wade's telling - says, "No, no, I'm putting my faith in the Lord." Eventually, and it isn't very long in coming, the man drowns. Yet when he stands up to meet his Maker at the fated spot where some rejoice but many more cower, his Maker looks sternly down and says, "You're a fool. You're assigned to hell forever. Go there now." To which the drowned man says, "But your honor, I put my faith in you. You promised to save me." "Save you!?" fearsome God shouts from misty marmoreal heights. "Save you? Save you?" God thunders. "I sent you three boats! — Richard Ford

The meetings continued on, each one with the same grueling pace. The participants kept repeating the same information. What to do if the Vittra reneged on the deal. What to do if the Vittra attacked. What to do if the Vittra tried to kidnap me.
And it all boiled down to one answer-fight back. Tove and I would use our abilities,the trackers would use their strength and skill,and the Chancellor would cower in the corner. — Amanda Hocking

Half happy. We wander among Mayflowers, among the lonely paths in the woods. We hover over gatherings of people, over the scene of accidents, gardens, festivals. We cower in chimneys of dwelling places and behind the bed curtains. Give me your hand. We don't associate with each other, but we see and hear everything that is going on in the world. We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it. — Frank Wedekind

More than the choking heat, more than the blinding flames that rise up into the night sky, more than the endlessly leaping colours that change shape with every moment, more than all of these is the transforming power of fire. Fire takes solid wooden beams and reduces them to charcoal. It licks at everything with a scarlet tongue and leaves it black. It spreads like the folds of a golden robe over human bodies and what is left is gray and chalky: ash, blown up and up by every breath of wind only to fall like dust on the ground. When it is burning most fiercely, it seems that it might go on forever and devour everything in its path. It does not cower and withdraw in front of princes. Palace and hovel alike are good fuel and nothing more. It is unstoppable. And when it has moved, what remains is desolation. — Adele Geras

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors. Wouldn't it be great to walk out? — Max Lucado

Some are born brilliant, some have brilliance thrust upon them
and others cower in the dark crying, It burns! It burns! — K.A. Laity

We can choice to cower at the river's edge, watching as life sails past us, always the bystander, never the participant. We can shade our eyes and fret about all the untold dangers below the surface. We can play and replay all the warnings we've ever heard.
Or.
Or we can equip ourselves with what we need to survive — Justina Chen

The wretch that fears to drown, will break through flames;
Or, in his dread of flames, will plunge in waves.
When eagles are in view, the screaming doves
Will cower beneath the feet of man for safety. — Colley Cibber

Finally, a prominent nation is taking on the homosexual agenda and rejecting it outright. A number of African nations have done the same, but third-world countries are not newsworthy to mainstream media. The irony is stunning that a Communist nation would understand that preserving the value of men and women marrying and producing children makes for demographic survival, while many American Christian leaders cower in the shadows, in fear of activist homosexuals and their leftist supporters. I say 'cheers' to the Russians on this one. That nation will probably outlive America. — Sylvia Thompson

The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the clefts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - universe. — Annie Dillard

There was a moment of hesitation in which Joe looked into her eyes, and she looked back without flinching. Many a time, he had been at the same game with her, and she had always crumbled, bowing to his will. Now, he must have realized he was looking into the eyes of a stranger. She was someone he could not recognize, a foreigner inhabiting the body of that old Clairey, the girl he had abused, intimidated, and broken. Clairey decided then and there she would no longer cower before him. It was almost as if she were daring him to strike her in their unspoken exchange. — Tracy Winegar

I forgot that with the green, the plushness, and shiny plant life that pushed up and surrounded us, with the nourishment it provided came - the fur, the claws, the teeth.
This was not our place. We were borrowers. No longer were we the dominant species. Our time had passed.
We were small in number and frame.
We were supposed to run.
Climb.
Cower
I forgot. — Lauren Nicolle Taylor

And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beating and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for their are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me. — Ray Bradbury

Life's inevitable changes are like a compulsory roller-coaster ride. You can cower and shut your eyes tight, or you can exult in the thrills. — Roger Crawford

Stop letting everyone else tell you what's wrong and right. Stake a claim! You cower when you could conquer. — Tahereh Mafi

Her eyes strayed toward his ash blond locks, and she hit upon the perfect term immediately.

Intensifying her glare, she spit out, "If I had a choice, I would never ask a Yeti like you!"

Park felt himself turning red. He couldn't remember being this mad at a girl. "You're calling me a fucking Yeti?"

Steeling herself not to cower at the guy's roar, Violet made herself smirk. "The shoe totally fits, don't you think? White, monstrously ugly, beast-like character - like I said: Yeti," she said sweetly. — Marian Tee

she said, when I wear these boots no one fucks with me
when I tie my past like a scarf around my throat
I can freeze the blood
of every naive and unabashed up-and-comer
when I slide on my desire like glowing black stockings
I can make the uninitiated beg
for the feel of raw and stinging wood
and when I slip my angry black leather belt
from its rusty hook
the ambitious and guileless cower
like a thousand condemned souls
when I close my fist, my rings golden
with a youth well spent
the warriors of Gilead surrender
with a breathless whimper
and when my shoulders
feel the rough comfort of my serape woven with the fibers
of a fierce and relentless vengeance
you will soon realize
these are not my clothes after all, she says,
they are warning signs — Daniel Ames

Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. — Robert Browning

They hacked down trees widening rings around their central halls and blistered the land with peasant huts and pigeon fences till the forest looked like an old dog dying of mange. they thinned out the game, killed birds for sport, set accidental fire that would burn for days. their sheep killed hedges, snipped valleys bare, and their pigs nosed up the very roots of what might have grown. hrothgar's tribe made boats to drive farther north and west. there was nothing to stop the advance of man. huge boars fled at the click of a harness. wolves would cower in the glens like foxes when they caught that deadly scent. i was filled with a wordless, obscurely murderous unrest. — John Gardner

Han smiled. "A sNymph will enjoy the order, the sensation, welcome it. Showing her beautiful glowing breast will never be a problem. But you ... you ... cower from it. Why are you showing yourself inferior? If you're a sNymph why can't I see your breast?"
Her tone was shaken but resolute. "You will need my consent."
Han shrugged. "Well then, sNymph, do show me your breast."
She didn't hesitate. "No."
"Han," Sam called.
Sam glanced backward. "What now Sam? Can't you see I'm busy talking to a sNymph?"
"Can I talk to you privately?" Sam asked.
Han exhaled before standing and walking to Sam. "What about?"
"Not here," Sam replied and exited.
Han followed.
Sam whispered. "I think we both know she's an iNymph. — Dew Platt

Venus of Willendorf carries her cave with her. She is blind, masked. Her ropes of corn-row hair look forward to the invention agriculture. She has a furrowed brow. Her facelessness is the impersonality of primitive sex and religion. There is no psychology or identity yet, because there is no society, no cohesion. Men cower and scatter at the blast of the elements. Venus of Willendorf is eyeless because nature can be seen but not known. She is remote even as she kills and creates. The statuette, so overflowing and protuberant, is ritually invisible. She stifles the eye. She is the cloud of archaic night. — Camille Paglia

They're not really homes. More like houses where we sleep.
Where we eat - if we're lucky. Where we cry and fight.
Where we bleed and break. Where we cower and scream.
Where we give up. Where we sigh.
Where we barely survive. — Chelsea Fine

Who will you be when faced with the end?
The end of a kingdom,
The end of good men,
Will you run?
Will you hide?
Or will you hunt down evil with a venomous pride?

Rise to the ashes,
Rise to the winter sky,
Rise to the calling,
Make heard the battle cry.
Let it scream from the mountains
From the forest to the chapel,
Because death is a hungry mouth
And you are the apple.

So who will you be when faced with the end?
When the vultures are circling
And the shadows descend
Will you cower?
Or will you fight?
Is your heart made of glass?
Or a pure Snow White? — Lily Blake

As the saw teeth caught on the bone, she had performed a second surgery, one less bloody but no less brutal, excising from his heart the impulse to run, to cower, to let the man bleed to death rather than face the horror of saving him. The amputation had left both patients lighter. p 121-122 — Anthony Marra

From here on," Kanin said, "you will have to decide what kind of demon you will be. Not all meals will come to you so easily, ignorant and seeking to do you harm. What will you do if your prey invites you inside, offers you a place at the table? What will you do if they flee, or cower down, begging you not to hurt them? How you stalk your prey is something you must come to terms with, or you will quickly drive yourself mad. And once you cross that threshold, there is no coming back from it. — Julie Kagawa

How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows - this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That's what things look like in our cities at present — Robert Walser

This is your chance. Are you going to cower and make excuses or are you going to do what you really want to do? — S.A. Tawks

Why can't I be like that? Why can't I be the father who just shrugs off the love of his daughter? Why can't I be the Lead Inquisitor who enjoys watching his pleading victims burn at the stake? Why can't I be the one who befriends a lonely, lost girl and then casts her out? Why can't I be the one to strike first, to hit so early and with such fury that my enemies cower before they can ever think of turning on me? What is so great about being good? — Marie Lu

WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINK
Some people cower
and wince and shrink,
owing to fear of
what people may think.
There is one answer
to worries like these:
people may think
what the devil they please. — Piet Hein

He would rather know what's outside, see the summer in its sad blowing wreckage, than cower behind the blind and wonder what the damage is. - Thomas Cromwell - Wolf Hall — Hilary Mantel

To fear God is, not to cower before him in terror, but to bow before him in awe. — Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society

Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts, his own inclinations, society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe. — John Holmes

The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I do not choose to be a common man.
It is my right to be uncommon - if I can. I seek opportunity - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. — Dean Alfange

The victim inside us all ceases when we stand up in opposition of that which oppresses or intimidates us. Something powerfully intrinsic happens when the courage to no longer be silent awakens within us and we are compelled to confront our problems rather than cower to them. The things that torment us thrive on our hushed fears and insecurities and they are made powerless by a resilient voice; An inner voice that says..."No More!" ~ Jason Versey — Jason Versey