"Lily-livered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other. We must be defending or attacking something; only the lily-livered hide their natural cowardice by asking the impudent question, What is it all about? The heroic gird on the armor of the Lord, square their shoulders, and establish a muscular tension which serves to dispel doubt and begets the voluptuousness of bigotry and fanaticism.[28] In this mood ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... again,—him, wouldn't I? I ain't afraid of any body; and I'd have the life of the man who split upon me. That's my maxim, and pass me the liquor—You wouldn't turn on a man. I know you. You're an honest feller, and will stand by a feller, and have looked death in the face like a man. But as for that lily-livered sneak—that poor lyin', swindlin', cringin' cur of a Clavering—who stands in my shoes—stands in my shoes, hang him! I'll make him pull my boots off and clean 'em, I will. Ha, ha!" Here he burst out into ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said, and banged the door in his face. "And don't tell master," she bawled after him, "else he'll be fainting again, drat him for a lily-livered duck!" ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... with you," she said, and banged the door in his face. "And don't tell master," she bawled after him, "else he'll be fainting again, drat him for a lily-livered duck!" ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... laughed a-good As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood With billet poised and raised,—you, ready with the rope,— Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope! Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we! The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d——) Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence: Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence! There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year, No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke |
