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Cowardice is the failure to act in the middle of fear

• We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear. Veronica Roth
• Cowardice: The condition of lacking bravery, being easily frightened, or being eager to avoid danger.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Fear,  Courage,  Boldness, Rashness,  Caution

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Cowardice is not doing what you know to be right

• In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. Charles Dickens
• To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius
• Right action

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Cowardice thinks with its legs and runs away

• It’s when you run away that you are most liable to stumble. Casey Robinson
• My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice. I can no more preach nonviolence to a coward than I can tempt a blind man to enjoy healthy scenes. Mahatma Gandhi
• To run away from danger, instead of facing it, is to deny one’s faith in man and God, even one’s own self. It were better for one to drown oneself than live to declare such bankruptcy of faith. Mahatma Gandhi
• Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs. Ambrose Bierce
• I’m a hero with coward’s legs. Spike Milligan

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Fear is not cowardice but letting fear rule you is

• Fear even when morbid is not cowardice. That is the label we reserve for something that a man does. What passes through his mind is his own affair. Lord Moran
• Fear has its use but cowardice has none. Mahatma Gandhi
• Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done—that’s courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward. Piers Anthony
• None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear. Ferdinand Foch
• Fear

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A real hero is a coward who acts bravely in spite of fear

• The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. Umberto Eco
• A coward gets scared and quits. A hero gets scared, but still goes on.
• You cannot be a hero without being a coward. George Bernard Shaw
• Action

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Fear of being thought a coward makes many brave

• Many would be cowards if they had courage enough. Thomas Fuller
• Courage is the fear of being thought a coward. Horace Smith
• Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away. Thomas Fuller
• That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward. Edgar Allan Poe

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Fear of being thought a coward is the worst reason to do anything

• Being afraid you’ll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything. John Irving

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Fear is at the root of all cowardice…

• Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated. Ambrose Bierce
• Fear

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… especially the fear of ridicule

• Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice. André Gide
• The fear of being laughed at makes cowards of us all.   Mignon McLaughlin
• Humiliation,  Rejection

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Cowards tend to their fear before battle, the courageous only after

• A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward. Jean Paul
• I believe there is no other difference between those who are called courageous and those who are branded craven than that the second are fearful before the danger and the first after it. No one can be much frightened, certainly, during a period of great and immanent peril — the mind is too much concentrated on the thing itself, and on the actions necessary to meet or avoid it. The coward is a coward, then, because he has brought his fear with him; persons we think cowardly will sometimes amaze us by their bravery, if they have had no forewarning of their danger. Gene Wolfe

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The main reward of cowardice is that you live to fight another day

• He that fights and runs away, may live to fight another day. English Proverb
• I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave. M. Forster
• It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life. Proverb
• When in doubt chicken out. Robin Jones Gunn

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Some argue, however, that it’s better to die than be a coward

• It is better to be killed than frightened to death. Robert S. Surtees
• It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward. Dolores Ibarruri

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Cowardice has some strong drawbacks

• A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit. Thomas Jefferson
• Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame. Jose Rizal
• But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything. Jim Butcher
• Cowards die many times before their actual deaths. Julius Caesar
• Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare. Queen’s Mother Elizabeth
• Cowards’ weapons neither cut nor pierce. Meastasio
• Cruelty ever proceeds from a vile mind, and often from a cowardly heart. Lodovico Ariosto
• Faint heart never won fair lady. Miguel de Cervantes
• He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any many could have. Ernest Hemingway
• It is better to be killed than frightened to death. Robert S. Surtees
• It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape. Voltaire
• It’s when you run away that you are most liable to stumble. Casey Robinson
• Of cowards, no history is written. English Proverb
• One must pray first, but afterwards one must help oneself. God does not care for cowards. Ouida

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We all have both courageous and cowardly aspects within us

• The saintly and the cynical, the divine and the diabolical, the courageous and the cowardly: all these aspects lie dormant in us and will act out if they are not recognized and integrated into our psyches. Many of us are frightened to look within ourselves, and fear has us put up walls so thick we no longer remember who we are. Debbie Ford

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Most of us fall into the space between complete courage and absolute cowardice

• Complete courage and absolute cowardice are extremes that very few men fall into. The vast middle space contains all the intermediate kinds and degrees of courage; and these differ as much from one another as men’s faces or their humours do. Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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We can all be cowards, given the right circumstances

• All men would be cowards if they could. Earl Rochester
• Nearly every man is a coward, if confronted by the proper terror. Edgar Watson Howe

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There can be a fine line between bravery and cowardice

• The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways. Gene Hackman

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There can also be a fine line between being cowardly and sensibly cautious

• All virtues come down to courage, at the sharp end of the sword. But courage must be tempered by prudence. Courage wasted by misdirection is the most heart-breaking of all tragedies. If there is an eighth deadly sin, it ought to be stupidity, by which all virtues run out into dry sands. Yet…where does prudence end and cowardice begin? That’s a very good damn question! Lois McMaster Bujold
• The coward calls himself cautious. Syrus
• Caution

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Courage lies half way between cowardice and rashness

• The rash person is in some way blind to danger. The coward is blinded by it. The courageous person is intelligent enough to recognize risk, but committed enough to act despite of it, when action is appropriate. Tom Morris
• True valour lies half way between cowardice and rashness. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage. Plutarch
• Rashness

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Cowards may pass for heroes until a real trial comes along

• There is no merit where there is no trial; and till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, and faith for falsehood. Aaron Hill
• Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. George Eliot
• It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave. Sallust

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Imagination makes cowards of many

• Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Ernest Hemingway
• How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination. Jeremy Collier
• Imagination

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Worry of the future makes cowards of many

• It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen. Herodotus
• I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. Dorothy Day
• Worry

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Fatigue and hunger make cowards of many

• A light supper, a good night’s sleep, and a fine morning have sometimes made a hero of the same man who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and a rainy morning would have proved a coward. Philip Dormer Stanhope
• Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Vince Lombardi
• Tiredness and fatigue

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Thinking too much makes cowards of many

• Reflection makes men cowards. Hazlitt, William
• Thinking

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Patience, taken to extreme, is cowardice

• Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and its cowardice. George Jackson
• Patience is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts. William Shakespeare
• Patience

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Compromise is a kind of cowardice

• Compromise is a word found only in the vocabulary of those who have no will to fight—the lazy, the cunning, the cowardly—for they consider themselves defeated before they start. Josemaria Escriva
• Compromise is never anything but an ignoble truce between the duty of a man and the terror of a coward. K. Chesterton
• Compromise

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Apathy adds up to cowardice

• Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice. Rollo May
• Apathy and indifference

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Silence can be a form of cowardice

• Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
• To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. Abraham Lincoln
• Silence

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Conformity is a form of cowardice

• The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity. Robert Anthony
• There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. Ayn Rand
• To be one’s self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity. Irving Wallace
• Conformity

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Conscience and principle get a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice – or do they?

• Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice. Evan Esar
• Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular?” But, conscience asks the question, “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right. Martin Luther King
• Cowardice asks: Is it safe? Expediency asks: Is it politic? But Conscience asks: Is it right? William Punshon
• Cowards can never be moral. Mahatma Gandhi
• We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles. Mark Twain
• Conscience

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Cowardice can always find a reason to justify itself

• Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice. George Bernard Shaw
• There is always a philosophy for lack of courage. Albert Camus
• Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. Albert Camus

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Cowards don’t become so overnight

• Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and perceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and last some crisis shows what we have become. Brooke Foss Westcott

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A coward tends to bark and growl a lot

• A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites. Quintus Curtius Rufus
• A coward’s courage is in his tongue. Burke
• I’m a charming coward; I fight with words. Carl Reiner
• I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark. Samuel Johnson

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A coward is incapable of exhibiting love

• A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. Mahatma Gandhi
• The coward says in his heart “There is no love. ”Because, standing in the shadows of the big, grand, and powerful existence of love, his small spirit is left feeling even smaller and less significant. And so, he chooses to deny the existence of love altogether. Because he is too small to have it. C. JoyBell C.
• Love

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Here are some signs and qualities of cowardice

• It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenceless one. Only the ignorant and narrow- minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things. Lawrence G. Lovasik
• Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice. Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• To wish for death is a coward’s part. Ovid
• Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save. John Gay
• Haters and bullies are always cowards, you know. They like to pick on little guys. Scylar Tyberius
• If you don’t make a few ememies now and then, you’re a coward-or worse. Christopher Paolini
• Only the brave know how to forgive…. A coward never … it’s not in his nature. Laurence Sterne
• The coward only threatens when he is safe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Those who brag the most are often cowards

• A coward boasting of his courage may deceive strangers, but he is a laughing-stock to those who know him. Phaedrus
• The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards. Jean Jacques Rousseau

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Preparation eradicates cowardice

• We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear. Veronica Roth
• Preparation

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Obstacles become cowards if you face them squarely

• Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can.  If they see you are afraid of them… they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight. Orison Swett Marden
• Obstacles

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• A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.   Elbert Hubbard
• A coward is a hero with a wife, kids and a mortgage.   Marvin Kitman
• A coward is a man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts normally.    Sultana Zoraya
• Courage is the fear of being thought a coward. Horace Smith
• Coward: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.   Ambrose Bierce
• Fight or flight? If I had wings, there’d be no choice. But since I don’t have wings, I have to rely on my cape, and a long running start. Jarod Kint
• He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex. Gustave Flaubert
• I am quite possibly the world’s bravest coward. I have never backed down from backing down from a fight. Jarod Kintz
• I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.   Samuel Johnson
• I loathe people who keep dogs; they are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves. August Strindberg
• I’m a charming coward; I fight with words. Carl Reiner
• If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy then yes Mr. Brave man I guess I’m a coward.   Jack Handey
• Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.   Voltaire
• My valour is certainly going, it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were, at the palms of my hands! Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• Nixon is a purposeless man but I have great faith in his cowardice.   Jimmy Breslin
• She came to me on hands and knees.  What did she say? Come out from under that bed, you coward.
• The opposite for courage is not cowardice it is conformity; even a dead fish can go with the flow.   Jim Hightower
• There are several good protections against temptations but the surest is cowardice.   Mark Twain
• Utter cowards who force their own children to drink wine they gibber like baboons even when you try to speak to them in their own wimpy language.   P.J. O’Rourke
• War:  A cowardly escape from the problems of peace.   Mann Thomas
• When in doubt chicken out. Robin Jones Gunn