Timorous Quotes & Sayings

Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination. — Iain M. Banks

The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,
for love is respectful and timorous; and where among her followers will she find a husband? — Samuel Johnson

Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control. — George Eliot

For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last
newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising
pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this
one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor
patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the
smallest boy into the burning plea: Almighty God, bless our arms
when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now
whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle! — Adolf Hitler

Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy. — Thomas Paine

Conservatism, ever more timorous and narrow, disgusts the children, and drives them for a mouthful of fresh air into radicalism. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

She was perhaps too young to realize that what she assumed was her love for [him] was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself. — Arundhati Roy

CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns. — Ambrose Bierce

The average politician goes through a sentence like a man exploring a disused mine shaft-blind, groping, timorous and in imminent danger of cracking his shins on a subordinate clause or a nasty bit of subjunctive. — Robertson Davies

Attributed the decay of Hindu society in Trinidad to the rise of the timorous, weak, non-beating class of husband. — V.S. Naipaul

To begin with clear and self-evident principles, to advance by timorous and sure steps, to review frequently our conclusions, and examine accurately all their consequences; though by these means we shall make both a slow and a short progress in our systems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to reach truth, and attain a proper stability and certainty in our determinations. — David Hume

A tiger's DNA is also a 'duplicate me' program but it contains an almost fantastically large digression as an essential part of the efficient execution of its fundamental message. That digression is a tiger, complete with fangs, claws, running muscles, stalking and pouncing instincts. The tiger's DNA says, 'Duplicate me by the round-about route of building a tiger first.' At the same time, antelope DNA says, 'Duplicate me by the round-about route of building an antelope first, complete with long legs and fast muscles, complete with timorous instincts and finely honed sense organs tuned to the danger from tigers. — Richard Dawkins

IN APRIL Again the woods are odorous, the lark Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark, Where branches bare disclosed the empty day. After long rainy afternoons an hour Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings Them at the windows in a radiant shower, And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings. Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies; And cradled in the branches, hidden deep In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies. — Rainer Maria Rilke

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality. — Samuel Johnson

A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses
fancying she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty
warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter
by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.
I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin. — Charlotte Bronte

I hope no man will call me timorous; and yet I'ld as soon be called that as rash. — Rafael Sabatini

And so I miss the fertilization that might come from a contact. And for me
yes, I think I might as well admit it
fertilization does come a great deal from contacts. Why then do I avoid them
in a sort of false pride
shyness
timorous modesty? I used to be afraid of falling in love with people
or having them think I was
that I was chasing them (how ridiculous
I am actually always running away!) but now surely
I should be mature enough to be over that. I am no longer afraid of falling in love, and the other false modesties should vanish. I cannot bear to think "par delicatesse j'ai perdu ma vie." (Because of discretion I have lost my life). — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

One reason why I recommend the abandonment of religious beliefs is because I think those beliefs are wrong. There is no evidence that our world was created by divine intention, that a god intercedes in human affairs, or that there is life after death. Religion is a hangover from humankind's timorous infancy; it's time for us to walk upright and unafraid, and to take charge of our own lives. — Simon LeVay

But he was one of those weak creatures, void of pride, timorous, anemic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves. — H.G.Wells

The ultimate destiny of madmen's souls has been probed by many Zemblan theologians who generally hold the view that even the most demented mind still contains within its diseased mass a sane basic particle that survives death and suddenly expands, bursts out as it were, in peals of healthy and triumphant laughter when the world of timorous fools and trim blockheads has fallen away far behind. Personally, — Vladimir Nabokov

The finest virtues can become deformed with age. The precise mind becomes finicky; the thrifty man, miserly; the cautious man, timorous; the man of imagination, fanciful. Even perseverance ends up in a sort of stupidity. Just as, on the other hand, being too willing to understand too many opinions, too diverse ways of seeing, constancy is lost and the mind goes astray in a restless fickleness. — Andre Gide

Lift your head to me ... '
His is the kiss of a timorous lover. Feel his inhuman lips on the throat, the heat of it. The bite, when it comes, is cold. Begin to sink as the blood flows into his mouth; it is almost soothing. No pain. No pain at all. His teeth grind into the muscles; ecstasy and torment. Life, the very being, is flowing out. Unholy nourishment. Holy nourishment. Drained slowly.
The trauma of it feels like being torn, but it is no more than suddenly having the ability to experience reality in a different way. Waiting for the end ... for what? Cannot foretell. No longer flesh, no longer blood. Soul. Free. — Storm Constantine

The American people, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, snivelling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goosesteppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages. — H.L. Mencken

Democracy the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob conditions. — H.L. Mencken

Cowardly thoughts, anxious hesitation, Womanish timidity, timorous complaints Won't keep misery away from you And will not set you free. — Edith Hahn Beer

And long shall timorous fancy see The painted chief, and pointed spear, And Reason's self shall bow the knee To shadows and delusions here. — Philip Freneau

Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry - that parent of crime - an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths. — Charlotte Bronte

Alexander had a casual, unconcerned ease about himself. He moved, sat, rested, and draped as if he were completely unaware of the effect he was having on a timorous girl of barely seventeen. All his confident limbs projected a sanguine belief in his own place in the universe. This was all given to me, he seemed to say. My body, my face, my height, my strength. I did not ask for it, I did not make it, I did not build it. I did not fight for it. This is a gift, for which I say my daily thanks as I wash and comb my hair, a gift I do not abuse or think of again as I go through my day. I am not proud of it, nor am I humbled by it. It does not make me arrogant or vain, but neither does it make me falsely modest or meek. I know what I am, Alexander said with every movement of his body. — Paullina Simons

Always attack. Even in defense, attack. The attacking arm possesses the
initiative and thus commands the action. To attack makes men brave; to defend
makes them timorous. — Steven Pressfield

They must live outside class, without relations or money; they must work and stick to each other till death. But England belonged to them. That, besides companionship, was their reward. Her air and sky were theirs, not the timorous millions' who own stuffy little boxes, but never their own souls. — E. M. Forster

Professions of humility are the very cream, the very essence of pride; the really humble person wishes to be, and not to appear so. Humility is timorous, and starts at her shadow; and so delicate that if she hears her name pronounced it endangers her existence. — Saint Francis De Sales

Socialism, Puritanism, Philistinism, Christianity - he saw them all as allotropic forms of democracy, as variations upon the endless struggle of quantity against quality, of the weak and timorous against the strong and enterprising, of the botched against the fit. — H.L. Mencken

Some men by unalterable frame of their constitution are stout, others timorous, some confident, others modest and tractable. — Jonathan Weiner

The first step to get this noble and manly steadiness, is ... carefully keep children from frights of all kinds, when they are young ... Instances of such who in a weak timorous mind, have borne, all their whole lives through, the effects of a fright when they were young, are every where to be seen, and therefore as much as may be to be prevented. — John Locke

Timorous minds are much more inclined to deliberate than to resolve. — Jean Francois Paul De Gondi

Guilt is a timorous thing ere perpetration; despair alone makes guilty men be bold. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

As far back as I can remember, I've utterly destroyed within myself the pride of being human. And I saunter to the periphery of the Race like a timorous monster, lacking the energy to claim kinship with some other band of apes. — Emil M. Cioran

The Roman Catholic portrait at the reception of the Indian YMCA displayed the generic Christ, the timorous, blonde-haired, blue-eyed face upturned to the heavens, a lost middle-class student searching for guidance in an inhospitable world. — Amit Chaudhuri

Maybe that's why Claire had perfected the art of invisibility. It was a form of self-preservation. You couldn't resent what you could not see. She was so quiet, but she noticed everything. Her eyes tracked the world like it was a book written in a language that she could not understand. There was nothing timorous about her, but you got the feeling that she always had one foot out the door. If the situation got too hard, or too intense, she would simply disappear. — Karin Slaughter

The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

His anger stirred her own and she suddenly thought she understood their problem: they were too polite, too constrained, too timorous, they went around each other on tiptoes, murmuring, whispering, deferring, agreeing. They barely knew each other and never could because of the blanket of companionable near-silence that smothered their differences and blinded them as much as it bound them. — Ian McEwan

Ask the average American what is the salient passion in his emotional armamentarium - what is the idea that lies at the bottom of all his other ideas - and it is very probable that, nine times out of ten, he will nominate his hot and unquenchable rage for liberty. He regards himself, indeed, as the chief exponent of liberty in the whole world, and all its other advocates as no more than his followers, half timorous and half envious. To question his ardour is to insult him as grievously as if one questioned the honour of the republic or the chastity of his wife. And yet it must be plain to any dispassionate observer that this ardour, in the course of a century and a half, has lost a large part of its old burning reality and descended to the estate of a mere phosphorescent superstition. — H.L. Mencken

Hesitancy is the surest destroyer of talent. One cannot be timorous and reticent, one must be original and loud. New metaphors, new rhythms, new expressions of emotion can only spring from unhindered gall. Nothing should interfere with that intuition
not the fear of appearing stupid, nor of offending somebody, nor jeopardizing publication, nor being trivial. The intuition must be as unhindered as a karate chop. — Stephen Dobyns

The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life. — Seamus Heaney

Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named. — William Congreve

None is poor but the mean in mind, the timorous, the weak, and unbelieving; none is wealthy but the affluent in soul, who is satisfied and floweth over. — Martin Farquhar Tupper

O white-robed Angel, guide my timorous hand to write as on a lofty rock with iron pen the words of truth, that all who pass may read. — William Blake

A final caution to students: in making judgments on literature, always be honest. Do not pretend to like what you really do not like. Do not be afraid to admit a liking for what you do like. A genuine enthusiasm for the second-rate is much better than false enthusiasm or no enthusiasm at all. Be neither hasty nor timorous in making your judgments. When you have attentively read a poem and thoroughly considered it, decide what you think. Do not hedge, equivocate, or try to find out others' opinions before forming your own. But having formed an opinion and expressed it, do not allow it to petrify. Compare your opinion then with the opinions of others; allow yourself to change it when convinced of its error: in this way you learn. Honestly, courage, and humility are the necessary moral foundations for all genuine literary judgment. — Laurence Perrine

Men are even lazier than they are timorous, and what they fear most is the troubles with which any unconditional honesty and nudity would burden them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If you desire to be magnanimous, undertake nothing rashly, and fear nothing thou undertakest; fear nothing but infamy; dare anything but injury; the measure of magnanimity is neither to be rash nor timorous. — Francis Quarles

I sometimes have moments of such despair, such despair ... Because in those moments I start to think that I will never be capable of beginning to live a real life; because I have already begun to think that I have lost all sense of proportion, all sense of the real and the actual; because, what is more, I have cursed myself; because my nights of fantasy are followed by hideous moments of sobering! And all the time one hears the human crowd swirling and thundering around one in the whirlwind of life, one hears, one sees how people live - that they live in reality, that for them life is not something forbidden, that their lives are not scattered for the winds like dreams or visions but are forever in the process of renewal, forever young, and that no two moments in them are ever the same; while how dreary and monotonous to the point of being vulgar is timorous fantasy, the slave of shadow, of the idea ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not fall in meekly behind them. We who protest ... are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress. — Howard Zinn

If it were not for the fact that editors have become so timorous in these politically correct times, I would probably have a greater readership than I have. — Pat Oliphant