Quotes & Sayings About Timidity

I speak French with timidity, and not flowingly
except when excited. When using that language I have often noticed that I have hardly ever been mistaken for a Frenchman, except, perhaps, by horses; never, I believe, by people. — Mark Twain

I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'. — Maya Angelou

Whilst weakness and timidity keep us to our duty, virtue has often all the honor. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

If you've a notion of what man's heart is, wouldn't you say that maybe the whole effort of man on earth to build a civilization is simply man's frantic and frightened attempt to hide himself from himself? That there is a part of man that man wants to reject? That man wants to keep from knowing what he is? That he wants to protect himself from seeing that he is something awful? And that this 'awful' part of himself might not be as awful as he thinks, but he finds it too strange and he does not know what to do with it? We talk about what to do with the atom bomb ... But man's heart, his spirit is the deadliest thing in creation. Are not all cultures and civilizations just screens which men have used to divide themselves, to put between that part of themselves which they are afraid of and that part of themselves which they wish, in their deep timidity, to try to preserve? Are not all of man's efforts at order an attempt to still man's fear of himself? — Richard Wright

That is why my pictures don't look like modern art. It's some sort of timidity on my part I'm sure. — Paula Rego

Sometimes girls, especially those whose tastes aren't routine, don't get a fair break. Too many of us have been bred to timidity. That is why those who escape must run, not stroll, toward what they desire. They mustn't look back. They mustn't question their own instincts. And they mustn't listen to the naysayers. If they can only follow their own true course, well then, they will be as renowned for their bravery as the greatest men are. — Chandra Prasad

Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile "gentle" because courageous. — John Ruskin

Humility does not mean weakness. It does not mean timidity. It does not mean fear. A man can be humble and fearless. A man can be humble and courageous. — Ezra Taft Benson

He spoke of what he called the "inner history of weakness, of what disappoints us in leaders, the timidity of thought, the hesitancy and the drift." In these cases imagination and will are often blinded by "constructed evils," he wrote. "We falter from childhood amidst shames and fears, we move in closed spaces where stale tradition enervates, we grow hysterical over success and failure, and so by surrounding instinct with terror, we prepare the soul for weakness. — Ronald Steel

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity. — Thomas Hardy

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. — Theodore Roosevelt

Here all fear of one another, all timidity about praying freely in one's own words in the presence of others may be put aside where in all simplicity and soberness the common, brotherly prayer is lifted to God by one of the brethren. But likewise all comment and criticism must cease whenever words of prayer howsoever halting are offered in the name of Jesus Christ. It is in fact the most normal thing in the common Christian life to pray together. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She could not have been born gray. Her
color, her color of brown, was an essential part of her, not an accident. Her anger, timidity, brashness, gentleness, all were elements of her mixed being, her mixed
nature, dark and clear right through, like Baltic amber. She could not exist in the gray people's world. She had not been born. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Pray, and then start looking for answers. Faithful prayer leads to expectant living. Pray for the Spirit, and wait to see the Spirit work all around you. Faithful prayer leads to Spiritual living. Pray, and know that whatever God brings is exactly the fish and bread and eggs you need. Prayer in faith leads to thankful living. Pray that your Father would be with you, protect you, guide you, and put away timidity and fear and anxiety. Prayer leads to bold, fearless living. — Peter Leithart

The fear of meeting the opposition of envy, or the illiberality of ignorance is, no doubt, the frequent cause of preventing many ingenious men from ushering opinions into the world which deviate from common practice. Hence for want of energy, the young idea is shackled with timidity and a useful thought is buried in the impenetrable gloom of eternal oblivion. — Robert Fulton

It has become a commonplace that aggressiveness also often has its roots in fear. I am inclined to think that this theory has been pushed too far. [ ... ] The type of aggressiveness that is the outcome of timidity is not, I think, that which inspires great leaders; the great leaders, I should say, have an exceptional self-confidence which is not only on the surface, but penetrates deep into the subconscious. — Bertrand Russell

I believe there are few whose view of life has not been affected by the stern or kindly influences of their early childhood, which threw them in upon themselves in timidity and reserve, or drew them out in genial confidence and sympathy with their fellow creatures. — Basil W. Maturin

I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

My days of torment were over, but the damage was done. I conflated the bullies and my bathroom accidents with an inchoate sense that something was wrong with me. I broadcast my sense of otherness through my slumped posture, downcast expression, and extreme timidity. Kids at school called weird so often that after a while I believed them. I hid myself behind a curtain of tangled hair. — Alysia Abbott

Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before. — Samuel Johnson

He never looks you straight in the eye; or if he does, it is somehow vaguely, indefinitely; he does not pierce you with the hawk's eye or the falcon's gaze of a cavalry officer. The reason for that is that he sees, at one and the same time, both your features and those of some plaster Hercules standing in his room, or else he imagines a painting of his own that he still means to produce. That is why his responses are often incoherent, not to the point, and the muddle of things in his head increases his timidity all the more. — Nikolai Gogol

Idleness and timidity often despair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being defeated; and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavors, by showing what has already been performed. — Samuel Johnson

Every isolated passion, is, in isolation, insane; sanity may be defined as synthesis of insanities. Every dominant passion generates a dominant fear, the fear of its non-fulfillment. Every dominant fear generates a nightmare, sometimes in form of explicit and conscious fanaticism, sometimes in paralyzing timidity, sometimes in an unconscious or subconscious terror which finds expression only in dreams. The man who wishes to preserve sanity in a dangerous world should summon in his own mind a parliament of fears, in which each in turn is voted absurd by all the others. — Bertrand Russell

And what little she allowed herself to say was said in a strained tone, in which her ingrained timidity paralysed her tendency to freedom and audacity of speech. — Marcel Proust

The biggest problem with Bill Schutz's food is his timidity with herbs and spices and some bizarre primeval fear of salt. — Marian Burros

This is why rational people - anti-religionists - must end their timidity and come out of their closet and assert themselves. — Bill Maher

It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by DELAY and TIMIDITY. — Thomas Paine

In short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable impulse to wrap himself in a covering, to make himself, so to speak, a case which would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to justify his timidity, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life. — Anton Chekhov

If we go about apologizing for speaking to people of the things of God, we must not be very much surprised if they catch our timidity and they feel awkward and we feel awkward. There is a certain shyness and awkwardness about us when we go to tell men and women of the things of eternal life, which react upon them until they become nervous and awkward too. — Mildred Cable

Given the same amount of intelligence, timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity — Carl Von Clausewitz

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid. — Robert Greene

Woman and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are in danger. — Jean Paul

Think of it this way: There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you. The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done. — Robert Greene

It is only through timidity that states are lost. — Voltaire

Nahuseresh had attributed her reluctance to an entirely understandable female timidity. He didn't seem to understand that the people of Eddis had very little to do all winter beyond develop superior artisan skills and train for war. — Megan Whalen Turner

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? — Vincent Van Gogh

What you do in a fight gym is learn how to be brave. You're learning how to punch and kick in a proper way, of course, but above all else, a fighter is someone who's got courage, who's dead game in a fight. Most guys don't come into the world that way. You learn to be brave through that process of getting your fear and timidity beaten out of you night after night after night. — Jonathan Gottschall

He who asks with timidity invites a refusal. — Seneca The Younger

Timidity prompted by past failures causes investors to miss the most important bull markets. — Walter Schloss

By nature independent, gay, even exuberant, seductively responsive and given to those spontaneous sallies that sparkle in the conversation of certain daughters of Paris who seem to have inhaled since childhood the pungent breath of the boulevards laden with the nightly laughter of audiences leaving theaters, Madame de Burne's five years of bondage had nonetheless endowed her with a singular timidity which mingled oddly with her youthful mettle, a great fear of saying too much, of going to far, along with a fierce yearning for emancipation and a firm resolve never again to compromise her freedom. — Guy De Maupassant

Because while she might be able to feign timidity within the confines of isolation, out here - amid chaos, destruction - I knew she'd become something entirely different. I was just waiting. Every day, patiently waiting for her to understand the breadth of her own potential; never realizing I'd entrusted her to the one soldier who might take her away from me.
I should shoot myself for it. — Tahereh Mafi

... but Charlie had seen love and prise flare in the brown eyes, burning away every trace of sadness and timidity. Rose Petch, she knew, would never abandon her child the way Charlie's mother had abandoned her. ... Charlie stood, trembling, torn nearly in two by jealousy and longing ... — Ellen Renner

He took her as though she were a toy, a toy or a closed rosebud which he brought into bloom each night of pleasure. [She] began to lose her timidity, giving herself over to that lascivious union, growing in response, turning into a heartsome, spirited lover. — Jorge Amado

He wasn't a bad person. He didn't want to fight. The trouble was that he'd tried to be part of the larger questions, tried to become part of politics and history. Happiness had a smaller location, though this wasn't something to flaunt, of course; very few would stand up and announce, 'Actually, I'm a coward,' but his timidity might be disguised, well, in a perfectly ordinary existence situated between meek contours ... Cowardice needed its facade, its reasoning, like anything else if it was to be his life's principle. Contentment is no easy matter. One had to situate it cannily, camoflauge it, pretend it was something else. — Kiran Desai

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

When the wayfarer whistles in the dark, he may be disavowing his timidity, but he does not see any the more clearly for doing so. — Sigmund Freud

What majesty is in a creeping Snail, what reflection, what earnestness, what timidity and yet at the same time what firm confidence! — Elisabeth Tova Bailey

I have long dreaded the thought of getting to the end of life and regretting that I allowed my own timidity or other people's expectations to determine the course of my life. I had decided at a much younger age that several of my beliefs should determine the course of my life ... I ... believe that Waengongi, the Creator, has an epic script into which my minute presence has been written. — Steve Saint

God looks on the upright, as has been said; and the upright shall gaze on Him ... That mutual gaze is blessedness. They who looking up behold Jehovah are brave to front all foes and to keep calm hearts in the midst of alarms. Hope burns like a pillar of fire in them when it is gone out in others; and to all the suggestions of their own timidity or of others they have the answer, In the Lord have I put my trust; how say ye to my soul, Flee? Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen. — Alexander MacLaren

You make my dance daring enough to finish. No more timidity. Let fruit fall, and wind turn my roots up in the air, done with patient waiting. — Rumi

Just forget for a minute that you have spectacles on your nose and autumn in your heart. Stop being tough at your desk and stammering with timidity in the presence of people. Imagine for one second that you raise hell in public and stammer on paper. You're a tiger, a lion, a cat. You spend a night with a Russian woman and leave her satisfied. You're twenty five. If rings had been fastened to the earth and sky, you'd have seized them and pulled the sky down to earth — Isaac Babel

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of calm and well balanced mind and discipline and self-control. — Anonymous

Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

This was the life, and this the history, of the child of the Marshalsea at twenty-two. With a still surviving attachment to the one miserable yard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and fro in it shrinkingly now, with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out to every one. Since she had begun to work beyond the walls, she had found it necessary to conceal where she lived, and to come and go as secretly as she could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which she had never slept in her life. Her original timidity had grown with this concealment, and her light step and her little figure shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them. Worldly — Charles Dickens

Why go on clinging to this clod of earth, this way of life, why pay heed to what your neighbour says? It is so parochial to bind oneself to views which are no longer binding even a couple of hundred miles away. Orient and Occident are chalk-lines drawn before us to fool our timidity. I will make an attempt to attain freedom, the youthful soul says to itself; and is it to be hindered in this by the fact that two nations happen to hate and fight one another, or that two continents are separated by an ocean, or that all around it a religion is taught which, nevertheless, did not exist a few thousand years ago. All that is not you, it says to itself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Great empires are not maintained by timidity. — Tacitus

In our timidity and our shoddy opportunism we are always stirred when a man appears on the horizon willing to stake his all on a conviction. — Clyde S. Kilby

Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. — Maya Angelou

Only those who play win. Only those who risk win. History favors risk-takers. Forgets the timid. Everything else is commentary. — Iveta Cherneva

In his essay 'Self-Reliance' Emerson wrote, 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.' The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The very best way in all the world to overcome self-consciousn ess and shyness is to get interested in other people and to think of them and, almost miraculously, your timidity will pass. Do something for other people. Practice deeds of kindness, acts of friendliness, and you'll be surprised to see what happens. — Dale Carnegie

one who makes no mistakes makes nothing — Giacomo Casanova

Enough of invisibility, silence, timidity, defensiveness, guilt! An invisible, silenced man was an empty space into which others could pour their prejudices, their agendas, their wrath. The fight against fanaticism needed visible faces, audible voices. He would be quiet no longer. He would try to become a loud and visible man. — Salman Rushdie

The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities. — Victor Hugo

This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease. — Robert F. Kennedy

Logic is something the mind has created to conceal its timidity, a hocus-pocus designed to give formal validity to conclusions we are willing to accept if everybody else in our set will too. — Carl Lotus Becker

I feel sorry for the man who has never known the bracing thrill of taking a stand and sticking to it fearlessly. Moral courage has rewards that timidity can never imagine. Like a shot of adrenaline, it floods the spirit with vitality — Billy Graham

Questions are for the benefit of every student, not just the one raising his hand. If you don't have the starch to stand up in class and admit what you don't understand, then I don't have the time to explain it to you. If you don't have a policy against nonsense you can wind up with a dozen timid little rabbits lined up in the hall outside your office, all waiting to whisper the same imbecilic question in your ear. — Ann Patchett

The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think ... Let us dare to read, think, speak, write. — David McCullough

Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged. It is inevitable that he who by concentrated application has extended this limit for himself, should arouse the resentment of those who have accepted conventions which, since accepted by all, require no initiative of application. And this resentment generally takes the form of meaningless laughter or of criticism, if not persecution. — Man Ray

I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony, that this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you.
to have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with an effort. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure. — Robert Dallek

I could not but feel that it was ironical that the old relative should have spoken disparagingly of fawns as a class, sneering at their timidity in that rather lofty and superior manner, for he himself could have walked straight into a gathering of these animals and no questions asked. — P.G. Wodehouse

I was on the shy side at school (one school report called me 'diffident') and Braefield had added a special timidity, but when I had a natural wonder... I lost all my diffidence, and freely approached others, all my fear forgotten. — Oliver Sacks

If it's real enlightenment ... you're dealing with someone who's broken through every rule, every barrier, every do and do not, and they've reached an apex of consciousness. They've broken through all the conditioning, all the timidity. They don't buy into any program. — Frederick Lenz

Old timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by silent, quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as he listens. — Thomas Hughes

If we spend our days trying to avoid the landmines of stepping out of God's will, then will be afraid to take any risks for his kingdom. But when you know there is a net of grace, when you know that God will catch you and set you back on his path when you fall, then you'll feel the freedom to pursue the adventure that kingdom living is all about. — Will Davis Jr.

Boldness in the course of a noble fight is worth the risk ... If you stand on truth, you'll only regret your timidity later, but you'll never regret being bold. — Charles R. Swindoll

Most of my central characters lack confidence but overcome their timidity or low self-esteem to win through in the end, so I suppose there is a kind of wish-fulfillment at work. — Geraldine McCaughrean

Why are some of us, he wondered, unable to love success or power or great beauty? Because we feel unworthy of them, because we feel more at home with failure? He didn't believe that was the reason. Perhaps one wanted the right balance, just as Christ had, the legendary figure whom he would have liked to believe in. 'Come unto me all ye that travail are and heavy laden.' Young as the girl was at that August picnic she was heavily laden with her timidity and shame. Perhaps he had merely wanted her to feel that she was loved by someone and so he began to love her himself. It wasn't pity, any more than it had been pity when he fell in love with Sarah pregnant by another man. He was there to right the balance. That was all. — Graham Greene

I do not regret the folly of my youth, but the timidity. — Mason Cooley

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail? — Eleanor Roosevelt

Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism. — William Manchester

Modesty is related to diffidence, diffidence is related to shyness, Shyness is a synonym for timidity, timidity is a characteristic of the meek, the meek do not inherit the Earth, they serve those who are self confident and self assertive. — Dean Koontz

All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood. — George S. Patton

The black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity. — Steven Biko

An end to timidity - the replacement of the philologically tentative by the lexicographically decisive. - on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary — Simon Winchester

He [the golfer] must have the courage to keep trying in the face of ill luck or disappointment, and timidity to appreciate and appraise the dangers of each stroke, and to curb the desire to take chances beyond reasonable hope of success. — Bobby Jones

An ounce of courage will go farther with women than a pound of timidity. — Honore De Balzac

We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else. — Gore Vidal

Right now, the United States of America is the patient. And the patient is in critical condition and will not be cured by political correctness and will not be cured by timidity. — Benjamin Carson

The Seven Deadly Sins of the Press: - Concentrated Power of the Big Press. - Passing of competition and the coming of monopoly. - Governmental control of the press. - Timidity, especially in the face of group and corporate pressures. - Big Business mentality. - Clannishness among the newspaper publishers that has prevented them from criticizing each other. - Social blindness. — Max Lerner

To be strong enough to know when you are weak, brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.

Not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of the difficulty and challenge.

Not to substitute words for actions.

To be proud and unbending in honest failure but humble and gentle in success.

To seek out and experience a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of lift, an appetite of adventure over love of ease.

To seek a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination and to exercise a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity.

To be modest so that you will appreciate the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

To be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously; to cry, but also to laugh.

To discover the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what is next, and the joy and inspiration of life. — Mark Weber

Often we are firm from weakness, and audacious from timidity. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

More sensitive than others in the beginning, we have to develop the will, the stamina, the determination, and the insensitivity to take critical abuse. A good writer, therefore, does well to see himself as a strong, weak person, full of brave timidity, sensitive and insensitive. — Norman Mailer

Here's one secret no one will tell you about getting laid after a date. DON'T TALK. Most girls blame either their looks or excessive timidity for their virginity. This is only true to an extent. These girls are also horribly annoying."
- Aurelia Nichols & Jillie Bean, 101 Tips to Lose Your Virginity after 25 — Camilla Monk

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. — William Shakespeare

Maximus was my model for self-control, fixity of purpose, and cheerfulness under ill-health or other misfortunes. His character was an admirable combination of dignity and charm, and all the duties of his station were performed quietly and without fuss. He gave everyone the conviction that he spoke as he believed, and acted as he judged right. Bewilderment or timidity were unknown to him; he was never hasty, never dilatory; nothing found him at a loss. He indulged neither in despondency nor forced gaiety, nor had anger or jealousy any power over him. Kindliness, sympathy, and sincerity all contributed to give the impression of a rectitude that was innate rather than inculcated. Nobody was ever made by him to feel inferior, yet none could have presumed to challenge his pre-eminence. He was also the possessor of an agreeable sense of humour. — Marcus Aurelius

Still, the facts are always there. Every teacher, every parent, every priest who serves this kind of neighborhood knows what these inequalities imply. So the sweetness of the moment loses something of its sweetness later on when you're reminded of the odds these children face and of the ways injustice slowly soils innocence. You wish you could eternalize these times of early glory. You wish that Elio and Ariel and Pineapple could stay here in this garden of their juvenile timidity forever. You know they can't. You have a sense of what's ahead. You do your best to shut it out. You want to know them as they are. You do not want to think too much of what may someday be. — Jonathan Kozol