Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Christian Nestell Bovee

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion should be left open. They will carry over to the enemy nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an encumbrance when once the sword is drawn.

Character | Courage | Cowardice | Enemy | Nothing | Will | Wisdom |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

The mean of true valor lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness.

Character | Cowardice | Rashness | Valor | Valor |

Anna Jameson

In every mind where there is a strong tendency to fear there is a strong capacity to hate. Those who dwell in fear dwell next door to hate; and I think it is the cowardice of women which makes them such intense haters.

Capacity | Character | Cowardice | Fear | Hate | Mind | Think |

Sherman E. Johnson

A man who protects and hoards his life may lose it anyhow. Perhaps to protect it is to lose it in the most real sense of the word, for cowardice means spiritual death.

Character | Cowardice | Death | Life | Life | Man | Means | Sense |

George Raymond Knight

Dishonesty, cowardice and duplicity are never impulsive.

Character | Cowardice | Dishonesty |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Valor has its limits like the other virtues, and these limits once transgressed, we find ourselves on the path of vice; so that we may pass through valor to temerity, obstinacy, and madness, unless we know its limits well - and they are truly hard to discern near the borderlines.

Character | Madness | Valor | Valor |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honor. Valor is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul.

Character | Heart | Honor | Man | Soul | Strength | Valor | Valor | Will | Worth | Value |

Edward Thomson

True valor lies in the mind, the never-yielding purpose, nor owns the blind award of giddy fortune.

Character | Fortune | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Valor | Valor | Yielding |

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow creatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him!

Beauty | Character | Excellence | Hate | Life | Life | Man | Pain | Passion | Pleasure | Valor | Valor | Wisdom | Youth |

David Hume

If suicide be supposed a crime, it is only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence when it becomes a burden.

Courage | Cowardice | Crime | Existence | Prudence | Prudence | Suicide | Wisdom |

Herbert Kaufman

Dreamers are the architects of greatness. Their brains have wrought all human miracles... only cowardice and lack of faith can keep the seeker from his chosen goal; but if his heart be strong and if he dream enough and dream it hard enough, he can attain, no matter where men failed before.

Cowardice | Enough | Faith | Greatness | Heart | Men | Miracles | Wisdom |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.

Cowardice | Force | Wisdom |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Coercion created slavery, the cowardice of the slaves perpetuated it.

Coercion | Cowardice | Slavery | Wisdom |

Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

I have always thought it rather interesting to follow the involuntary movements of fear in clever people. Fools coarsely display their cowardice in all its nakedness, but the others are able to cover it with a veil so delicate, so daintily woven with small plausible lies, that there is some pleasure to be found in contemplating this ingenious work of the human intelligence.

Cowardice | Display | Fear | Intelligence | People | Pleasure | Thought | Wisdom | Work | Thought |