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 |

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 |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Retreat is often a plan of resistance and may be a precursor of great bravery and sacrifice. Every retreat is not cowardice which implies fear to die.

Bravery | Cowardice | Fear | Plan | Sacrifice |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Fear has its use, but cowardice has none. I may not put my finger into the jaws of a snake, but the very sight of the snake need not strike terror into me.

Cowardice | Fear | Need | Terror |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.

Cowardice | Peace |

Albery Allson Whitman

Petition and complaint are the language of imbecility and cowardice – the evidences of that puerile fear which extinguishes the soul.

Cowardice | Fear | Language | Soul |

John Ruskin

What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men’s evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice.

Benevolence | Charity | Cowardice | Evil | Faith | Men | Practice | Reality | Forgive |