#cowardice

He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#french #love #men #women #love

Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily. ↗

— Cormac McCarthy

#constancy #courage #cowardice #steadfastness #truthfulness

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough. ↗

— Thomas Fuller

#cowardice #courage

They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#embarrassment #shame #war #courage

If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. ↗

— Michel de Montaigne

#faith #god #men #truth #veracity

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

— Terry Pratchett

#cowardice #humor #parody #imagination

Naphta loathed the bourgeois state and its love of security. He found occasion to express this loathing one autumn afternoon when, as they were walking along the main street, it suddenly began to rain and, as if on command, there was an umbrella over every head. That was a symbol of cowardice and vulgar effeminacy, the end product of civilization. An incident like the sinking of the Titanic was atavistic, true, but its effect was most refreshing, it was the handwriting on the wall. Afterward, of course, came the hue and cry for more security in shipping. How pitiful, but such weak-willed humanitarianism squared very nicely with the wolfish cruelty and villainy of slaughter on the economic battlefield known as the bourgeois state. War, war ! He was all for it – the universal lust or war seemed quite honorable in comparison. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#cowardice #security #umbrellas #war #love

I was a coward. I went to the war. ↗

— Tim O'Brien

#war #cowardice

Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything. ↗

— John Irving

#cowardice #cowardice

In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#cowardice #sin #innocence