"Cowardice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by my own words, "but this is cowardice! Why should we submit to this old world! Why should we give up—things you have dreamed as well as I! You said once—to hear my voice—calling in the morning.... Let us take each other, Mary, now. Now! Let us take each other, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... a murmur through a long afternoon of pain. Gameness was one of the fundamentals of her creed, and he had showed the white feather. It added to his punishment, too, that he worshiped pluck with all the fervor of one who knew he had none. Courage seemed to him the one virtue worth while; cowardice the unpardonable sin. He made no excuses for himself. From his father he inherited the fine tradition of standing up to punishment to a fighting finish. His mother, too, had been a thoroughbred. Yet he was a weakling. His heart pumped water ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... respectively of the masses remaining, which can be called still effective, that is, which have not yet quite collapsed like extinct volcanoes; account is taken of the ground gained or lost, and of how stands the security of the rear; these results with the special impressions as to bravery and cowardice, ability and stupidity, which are thought to have been observed in ourselves and in the enemy are collected into one single total impression, out of which there springs the resolution to quit the field or to renew ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... the harvest. The softest of her sex, if wronged in love, or thinking that she's wronged, becomes a tygress in revenge. I'll instantly to Beverley's—No matter for the danger—When beauty leads us on, 'tis indiscretion to reflect, and cowardice ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... lines, for I believe 100 determined men would carry them with ease, if they made their attack on the Shaggyeh or Bashi-Bazouk part.... The Cairo Turkish Bashi-Bazouks, the Shaggyeh, and the Fellaheen soldiers, I will back against any troops in the world for cowardice." ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Savarus, feeling the necessity of winning himself some supporters, displayed all the faculties of his soul and the resources of his intellect. He entered the room well, without awkwardness or arrogance, without weakness, without cowardice, quite gravely, and was not dismayed at finding himself among twenty or thirty men. The news of the meeting and of its determination had already brought a few docile sheep to ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... he ultimately be compelled to capitulate. But the federal government so far from being satisfied with these excuses, ordered a Court Martial to assemble, before which General Hull was tried, on the charges of treason, cowardice, and unofficerlike conduct. On the last charge only was he found guilty and sentenced to death. The Court, nevertheless, strongly recommended him to mercy. He was an old man, and one who, in other times, had done the State some service. He had served ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... last he found force to raise his brother's body and gather it in his arms, tight clasped to his breast, he tried to face the Thing that lay beyond. The sight set his limbs in a palsy with horror and dread. His senses had failed and fainted in utter cowardice, but for the strength that came from holding dead Christian in his arms, enabling him to compel his eyes to endure the sight, and take into the brain the complete aspect of the Thing. No wound, only blood stains on the feet. The great grim jaws had a savage grin, though dead-stiff. And ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... of peace. Not of that hysterical, sentimental horror of bloodshed which would place a great civilized nation at the mercy of more barbarous powers, which would stay the wheels of progress, and be indistinguishable from cowardice ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... then, had we not better give all up; and let human nature here sink into its natural channels; and let multitudes before our eyes continue to crowd the gates of the second death! O God, forbid such cowardice, cruelty, and treachery in thy servants! No; we will not thus surrender immortals. While there is grace or even nature in our hearts, we will not. We have, indeed, heard of difficulties, till the heart is pained, and the soul is ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton
... is to too late to withdraw? The world outside the sphere, I knew, would be cold and inhospitable enough for me—for weeks I had been living on subsidies from Cavor—but after all, would it be as cold as the infinite zero, as inhospitable as empty space? If it had not been for the appearance of cowardice, I believe that even then I should have made him let me out. But I hesitated on that score, and hesitated, and grew fretful and ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... his attitude towards the weaknesses of working-people. The "inertia" of the poor, which caused so many people to despair for them—their cowardice and instability—these were things about which Hal had heard all his life. "You can't help them," people would say. "They're dirty and lazy, they drink and shirk, they betray each other. They've always been like that." The idea would be summed up in a formula: ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... only proves their apathy and deeper degradation. That a majority of the women of the United States accept without protest the disabilities that grow out of their disfranchisement, is simply an evidence of their ignorance and cowardice, while the minority who demand a higher political status clearly prove their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... own cowardice that invites the spittle, Miriam. Where is the spirit of the Maccabaeans whom we hymn on this feast of Chanukah? The Pope issues Bulls, and we submit—outwardly. Our resistance is silent, sinuous. He ordains ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... indeed! I did salute him, but hardly in the way he bargained for. I had only an instant to think over what I could do. I knew that to give him the slightest advantage over me would be to bring on a Consular and European row, and a Christian row too, and that if I evinced the smallest cowardice I should never be able to show my face again. I had a strong English hunting-whip, and was wearing a short riding-habit. So I sprang nimbly from my saddle, and seized him by the throat, twisting his necktie tightly, and ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... best love, I am a better adept in the perusal of men's countenances and manners than many, and there are signs of lowering discontent and gloomy cowardice, arguing ill for unity of measures, on which our safety greatly rests. Yet my fancies may be wrong, and at all hazards my duty shall be done. The issue is in the hands of a higher power; we cannot do wrong in committing ourselves to Him, for thou knowest He giveth not the battle to the strong, and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... because the one great and ever-present fear, the fear of death, reduces all other considerations to their proper values. The actual fear of death is always present, but this fear itself cannot be sordid when men can meet it of their own free will and with the most total absence of cringing or of cowardice. ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... more than it did to the little world in which he moved. Some of the boys might guy him good-naturedly, but nobody was likely to take the matter seriously except himself. Bob had begun to learn that a man ought to be his own most severe critic. He had set out to cure himself of cowardice. He would not be easy in mind so long as he still suspected himself of showing ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... who had been uniformly harsh and unjust to the Kafirs, who had brought their own Republic to bankruptcy and chaos by misgovernment, who were and would remain foes of the British empire, who were incapable of appreciating magnanimity, and would construe forbearance as cowardice. They had destroyed the prestige of British power in Africa among whites and blacks, and thereby sowed for themselves and their successors ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... with Sir Andrew she shows the difference between the delicacy of woman and the cowardice of man. She does the little that she can, not for her own sake, but for the sake of her disguise —she feels that she owes something ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Chancellor Clarendon and his party, that they might have an opportunity to send the Earl of Sandwich out of the way from the Parliament, which then sat, and who, as he and his friends feared, would be severely punished for his cowardice in the Dutch fight. He neither understood the customs of the Court, nor the language, nor indeed any thing but a vicious life; and thus was he shuffled into your father's employment to reap the benefit of his five years' negotiation of the peace between England, Spain, and Portugal: and after above ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... you, and Lottie is sixteen! I sent for you, Pixie, to tell you how bitterly grieved Mrs Vane and I are to think of all you have suffered through our daughter's cowardice. I wish it were in our power to do something for you in return, but I hope at least that Lottie has expressed her regret before leaving, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... wrong there," said Wallmoden with decision. "A man of Falkenried's temperament would consider it cowardice to commit suicide, even though the days of his life were one continued torture. I do not venture to think what would have happened though, had he been allowed to carry out his intention ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... which followed it. If James Finlay had been obliged himself to execute the men whose execution his testimony secured; if he had been forced to lay the lash on quivering flesh or fit the noose round the necks of living men; it is likely that no bribe would have bought him, that sheer cowardice and an instinctive horror of death and pain would have saved him, as no consideration of honour and truth did, from the extreme baseness of an informer's trade. Here lay part of the meaning of his terrified desire for Hope's escape. He could not bear to see men hanged before the door ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... your cowardice sha'n't hang you," said Joe Brownbie to him on their way home. "Do you think we're going to fight the battles of a fellow like you, who hasn't pluck to ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... cowardice possibly impressed Mr Lessingham with the conviction that he himself was not cutting the most dignified of figures. At any rate, he made a notable effort to, once more, assume a bearing ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... battles to be fought and races to be won, but no longer against 'each other.' And strength and swiftness to win them; but no longer any strong and swift. There is weakness and cowardice, but no longer any cowards or weaklings. The good and the bad and the worst and the best—it is all mixed up. But the good comes to the top; the bad goes to the bottom—it is precipitated, as papa used to say. It is not an agreeable sediment, with its ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... earth, whom glory warms 330 To high achievements; can your spirits bend, Through base control (ye never can descend So low by choice) to wear a tyrant's chain, Or let, in Freedom's seat, a Stuart reign? If Fame, who hath for ages, far and wide, Spread in all realms the cowardice, the pride, The tyranny and falsehood of those lords, Contents you not, search England's fair records; England, where first the breath of life I drew, Where, next to Gotham, my best love is due; 340 There once they ruled, though crush'd by William's hand, They rule ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... our ill luck, and ignorantly imputing it to the cowardice of our native auxiliaries, was bringing his piece to bear upon his trembling ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... along with him and comfort him and help him have his chill, and if necessary send a telegram for him to his wife—she was in Pittsburgh—telling her that all was well. But I did not. I kept on. I have been trying to figure out ever since whether this showed courage on my part, or cowardice. ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... a rush, that revelation which explained so many things—everything in fact; all that strange cowardice, and all that stranger grace; that unmanly shrinking, that more than manly contempt for death. Now the firelight was too feeble to show more than one thing—the haunted eyes of the girl, as she ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... greater part of "all the glories" of France (as of most other countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to the virtue called courage; filling their history-books with tales about it, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... prisoner—an old pensioned Sepoy of twenty-five years' service, who produced his discharge—an awf'ly sportin' old card. He had been tryin' to make his men rush us early in the day. He was sulky—angry with his own side for their cowardice, and Rutton Singh wanted to bayonet him—Sikhs don't understand fightin' against the Government after you've served it honestly—but Stalky rescued him, and froze on to him tight—with ulterior motives, I believe. When ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... tree. The branch of a palm, if you put a weight upon it, doth not yield and bend downwards, but turns the contrary way as if it resisted the pressing force. The like is to be observed in these exercises. For those who, through weakness or cowardice, yield to them, their adversaries oppress; but those who stoutly endure the encounter have not only their bodies, but their minds too, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... war have quieted down, people seem to me a little less foolish. My nausea caused by the public cowardice is decreasing. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Pessimism is cowardice. The man who cannot frankly acknowledge the "Jim-Crow" car as a fact and yet live and hope is simply afraid either of himself or of the world. There is not in the world a more disgraceful denial of human brotherhood than the "Jim-Crow" ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... hypocritical religion and out of love of country. How have they answered me? By burying me in an infamous dungeon and robbing me of my intended wife! No, not to avenge myself would be a crime, it would be encouraging them to new acts of injustice! No, it would be cowardice, pusillanimity, to groan and weep when there is blood and life left, when to insult and menace is added mockery. I will call out these ignorant people, I will make them see their misery. I will teach ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... "Cowardice taints the character with moral turpitude; and I believe the facts related above show that said Senator is a coward; at all events he lacks moral courage, and is afraid of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court, whose judge the Senator-attorney of the court ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... man laughed a little laugh, sharp and eldrich, at the strange cowardice of the stalwart dare-devil. But Jasper did not echo ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... red-sleeved waistcoat and a pair of gray tweed trousers. I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob,—would have embraced him, only he, being an Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing—walked deliberately to him, took off my hat and said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' 'Yes,' said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly. I replace my hat on my head, and he ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... as I felt that day when I was swimming a mile from shore," he said to himself. "I felt that same chill, and thought that there was nothing for me to do but give up and drown. Then the same feeling of shame at my cowardice attacked me, and I struck out quietly, and went on and on to land. The fort is my land this time, and I'm going to reach it again by being cool. Oh, what a brain and power of self-control a General must possess ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... at the depth of disgraceful vanity and cowardice which special circumstances had brought within her consciousness. The Julia Bentley of the last few moments was not the Julia Bentley she was accustomed to meet and interrogate, and she asked herself how she might exorcise the meanness that had so unexpectedly ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... lowed, and, after the bustle of securing seats was over, Miss Marsh inquired if the children knew "any cause for the sorrow of that little girl?" pointing to Frado. It was soon all told. She then reminded them of their duties to the poor and friendless; their cowardice in attack- ing a young innocent child; referred them to one who looks not on outward appearances, but on the heart. "She looks like a good girl; I think I shall love her, so lay aside all prejudice, and vie with each other in shewing kindness and good-will ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... and breadth of France, and in that shadow the tyrants have trembled, shaken to the very souls of them by the rude hand of fear; in that shadow the spurned and downtrodden children of the soil have taken heart of grace. The bonds of servile cowardice that for centuries had trammelled them have been shaken off like cobwebs, and they that were as sheep are now become the wolves that prey on those that preyed on ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... question, we shall, in nine cases out of ten, discover him to be only a Christian in his own way, and as far as he thinks proper, and that he doubts of many things which we ourselves do not believe strongly enough to hear doubted without danger. 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. And under this shelter ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... instant her indignation at the incredible cowardice of the man crushed every other feeling. Then a thrill of horror came over her. Looking again at the last page she ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... with the dance, the warriors sat down to feast upon viands, which had, in the meanwhile, been preparing for them, and while they feasted they taunted their prisoner with cowardice, and told him in graphic language of the ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... him steadily in return, the gray gleam in his eyes a bit brighter, the lines of his mouth harder. Whatever the grave faults of these two men may have been, there was not a whit of cowardice between them as they stood ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... say it, for my plays might be hissed.'* Another prominent man started on a long journey to avoid having to express any opinion. Nearly all the baser passions of humanity were made manifest in some degree—treachery, rancour, jealousy, and moral and physical cowardice. ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... are expecting an answer, would like it to flash by brilliantly and with dash. He would go to Prince's Island, to Constantinople, and again to India and Sahalin.... But in the first place he is not free, he has a respectable family who need his protection. In the second, he has a large dose of cowardice. Looking towards the future I call nothing but cowardice. I am afraid of getting into a muddle, and every journey complicates my financial position. No, don't tempt me without need. Don't write ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... like a man pursued. And pursued he was; for he sought in vain to escape the passions that preyed on him, tormenting him. Sorrow, anguish, death; these were at his heels; and, worse than all, he thought his dying wife was following him, pleading for his return. Why had he forsaken her? Was it not cowardice—the cowardice and selfishness of his grief? Once or twice a fascination took hold of him, and, despite the terror that awed him, he threw a glance over his shoulder to see if after all he were pursued by the shadow he so much feared to meet. Then the wind began to utter ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... might have been expected: she dallied with her miserable cowardice, which she did not call by that name at all, until there really was no person within reach to invite to the meeting. Who would have supposed all this of Ruth Erskine! No one would have been less likely to have done ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... question,—such opinions being often influenced by the bias of party politics. Our countrymen are now waking up to a graver and deeper consideration of the tremendous interests at stake in our Colonies and Dependencies, and to a greater readiness to accept responsibilities which once undertaken it is cowardice to reject or even to ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... none," said Sir Richard, stung to hot contempt by the meanness and cowardice so characteristic of the miserable egotist he served. "Nor will there be the need, for I ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... nature by the resources of reason in favour of my dignity; but, then, what is courage if it is not presence of mind in the midst of danger? If my mind fail, I shall have no courage: this is to think in a circle. I felt that I should prefer death to cowardice—the thought gave ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... catching it from the other. Nominally, a doctor was attached to every prison, but instead of being ready, as doctors generally are, to risk their lives for their patients, these men usually showed great cowardice. In Exeter, the doctor when appointed had it set down in writing that he should not be obliged to attend anyone suffering from gaol fever; in the county gaol for Cornwall, every prisoner but one was ill of this ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... always ready to prosecute the one, or to repair the other. And he carried the same temper into private life, where he was distinguished for the dignity with which he avoided quarrels, under circumstances in which lesser men would have found it hard to do so, without incurring the reproach of cowardice. Nor must we pass over his thorough honesty and disinterestedness in pecuniary matters; a quality more rare in a great man then than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... the bravest men in other ages and nations have behaved themselves upon such incidents as we decide by combat; and show, from their practice, that this resentment neither has its foundation from true reason, nor solid fame; but is an imposture,[268] made up of cowardice, falsehood, and want of understanding. For this work, a good history of quarrels would be very edifying to the public, and I apply myself to the town for particulars and circumstances within their knowledge, which may ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... She stood rooted to the floor. Her father had filled Elijah's goblet with wine and it was her annual privilege to open the door for the prophet's entry. Intuitively she knew that David was pacing madly in front of the house, not daring to make known his presence, and perhaps cursing her cowardice. A chill terror seized her. She was afraid to face him—his will was strong and mighty; her fevered imagination figured it as the wash of a great ocean breaking on the doorstep threatening to sweep her off into the roaring whirlpool of doom. She threw the door of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... made in such a do-if-you-dare tone, that to hesitate would evince a cowardice unworthy of the first coachman to the first peer in Belgrave-square, and a leg of mutton and trimmings are duly entered in a greasy pocket-book, as dependent upon the result ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... those of its blinder sister. We see in the one matchless wisdom—profound decision—unfailing resource—a happy contentment as unfeigned as it is natural. On the other hand, we see temerity allied with cowardice—a man seeking wisdom on a watery plank, when every footmark may serve him for a funeral effigy; political duplicity arising from his confined generalization of facts; a desire to do right, but checked by accident ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... hence but firmer faith That every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath; That virtue and the faculties within Are vital, and that riches are akin To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death? ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... they are not separated from their mother, but wean themselves gradually. A number of puppies should be kenneled together, where they may be encouraged to fight, which will make them fiercer, but they should never be suffered to tire themselves since weariness develops cowardice. They should also be accustomed to be tied, at first with a light leash, and if they attempt to gnaw it they should be punished by whipping, so that they may not get the habit. On rainy days their ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... deemed angelic—is possessed by devils whose name is legion; her heart is the receptacle of a monstrous, hideous crowd of vices—vices the most opposite, there nestle together: brazen effrontery and cringing cowardice; sordid cupidity and the most lavish, reckless prodigality. With her, every act is the result of deep, cool calculation. No generous impulse ever beat within her breast; and love, except for self, never yet was awakened from its deathlike ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one of the chain of forts across the island where Columbus was at present staying, when the Admiral discovered his plan. All that was strongest and bravest in him rose up at this menace. His weakness and cowardice were forgotten; and with the spirit of an old sea-lion he sallied forth against the mutineers. He had only a dozen men on whom he could rely, but he armed them well and marched secretly and swiftly under cloud of night to ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... its new ruler, without even enquiring whether it approved of the change. One man only was in favour of a more honourable expedient, and that man was Iturrigaray, the viceroy. Well acquainted with the cowardice and cunning of his captive sovereign, the former of which qualities had dictated the decree, he had nevertheless formed a plan to preserve Mexico for him, in accordance with the wish of its population. A junta, composed of Spaniards and of the most distinguished ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... exaggerate the forces against us. They seem very strong when we are feeling weak; but they sometimes break up and disappear if they are met with a little courage. And the other warning is this, that we sometimes let ourselves sink and drift into sinful ways or moral cowardice, by neglecting the helps which God gives us for the strengthening of a good ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... whole truth outright, and say that her father—Beatrice's father—had been dead but just a week. The blood burned in her face. Brave natures, good and bad alike, hate falsehood, not for its wickedness, perhaps, but for its cowardice. She could do things as bad, far worse. She could lay her hand upon the forehead of a sleeping man and inspire in him a deep, unchangeable belief in something utterly untrue; but now, as it was, she was ashamed ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... is very simply and quite clearly answered by Browning himself. His case against the dilatory couple is not in the least affected by the viciousness of their aim. His case is that they exhibited no virtue. Crime was frustrated in them by cowardice, which is probably the worse immorality of the two. The same idea again may be found in that delightful lyric "Youth and Art," where a successful cantatrice reproaches a successful sculptor with their failure to understand each other in ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... the respective systems of Protection and Free-Trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the People in their Congressional districts, and to the decision of the Congress thereon, wholly free from Executive interference or dictation." The People, however, rebuked the moral cowardice thus exhibited by the Democracy—in avoiding a direct issue on the doctrine which Democracy itself had galvanized at least into simulated life,—by giving 286 electoral votes to the Republican candidate, to 63 for the Democratic, —or ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... an oath, and evidently disappointed at so tame an ending of the affair, for it was his nature to bluster and boast. Yet as his lips changed to a grin, I knew of what the man was thinking—he had mistaken De Artigny's actions for cowardice, and felt assured now of how he would deal with him. He turned to the canoe, a new conception of importance in the sharp tone of ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... cowardice that you simply did your duty? Have you forgotten that a child should love and honour his ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... Clayhanger's shop. And she could recall the sense of relief with which she had envisaged a union with some man stronger and more experienced than herself. In the relief was a certain secret shame, as though it implied cowardice, a shrinking away from the challenge of life and from the call of a proud instinct. In the steam-tram she had foreseen the time when she would belong utterly to some man, surrendering to him without reserve, the time when she would be a woman. And ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... am not to be found above ground. This saves your Grace and the troops any further trouble of searching; that is, if your ambition of glory press you to embrace this unequald venture offerd of Rob's head. But if your Grace's piety, prudence, and cowardice, forbids hazarding this gentlemanly expedient, then let your desire of peace restore what you have robed from me by the tyranny of your present cituation, otherwise your overthrow as a man is determined; and advertise ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Vanity Fair had as free notions about religion and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire, but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice took possession ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Borders defenceless against one of the largest armies ever collected in Scotland. Wolsey and Henry were only saved, from what might have been a most serious invasion, by Dacre's dexterity and Albany's cowardice. Dacre, the warden of the marches, signed a truce without waiting for instructions, and before it expired the Scots army disbanded. Henry and Wolsey might reprimand Dacre for acting on his own responsibility, but they knew ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... and cowardice, in order to escape present discomfort and wretchedness, to rush from this world into another, without knowing what we are ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... her, he did not make the necessary effort to find her, but tried to forget his sin again and ceased to think about it. And now this strange coincidence brought it all back to his memory, and demanded from him the acknowledgment of the heartless, cruel cowardice which had made it possible for him to live these nine years with such a sin on his conscience. But he was still far from such an acknowledgment, and his only fear was that everything might now be found out, and that she or ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... punish conductors of trains, engineers, and others employed in the transportation of persons by railway or by steamboats on rivers. Why should not the same principle be applied to acts of insubordination, cowardice, or other misconduct on the part of masters and mariners producing injury or death to passengers on the high seas, beyond the jurisdiction of any of the States, and where such delinquencies can be reached only by ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... kindness,—most unkind, that hath always spared the rod; A weak and numbing indecision in the mind that should be master; A foolish love, pregnant of hate, that never frowned on sin; A moral cowardice, ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... bushes and broken ground, as well as that the French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they would have remained there for a long time testing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... committee's report suggesting the idea that the courage of the deceased soldier had been questioned further than to correct the allegation of the report that either his or his widow's claim for pension has been rejected for cowardice. It appears from the record furnished to me that they were rejected on the ground that the evidence is insufficient to connect the death cause or disability with the soldier's ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... we have a more merciful substitution of rulers, or even of mere advice from a more advanced race. That is the case with the Central Asian Khanates and with the protected States of India. If the work has to be done, and if we are the best fitted for the work, then I think that it would be a cowardice and a ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... attitude and countenance expressing cringing cowardice, cloaked by ill-assumed effrontery. He did not speak, trying ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... to himself: "She is a rather curious mixture of impulse and reason; of shyness and audacity; of composure and timidity; of courage and cowardice and experience. But there is in her no treachery; ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... a small sum to his older son, because he knew that he was wicked, and did not deserve any. The will declared Oliver should have the money only on condition that he never stain his name with any act of meanness, dishonor, cowardice or wrong. If he did do this, then half the money was to go to the older son. The dying man also wrote a letter to Oliver's mother, telling her that he had made the will and that he was dying; but the older ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... other. The Times published the summarized conclusions of my statement, and gave me an opportunity of saying as much as it was then advisable to say of what had occurred. For it must be remembered that, however impatient and contemptuous I might feel of the intellectual cowardice shewn by the majority of the Committee face to face with myself, it was none the less necessary to keep up its prestige in every possible way, not only for the sake of the dignity and importance of the matter with which it had to deal, and in the hope that the treatment of subsequent ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... example, but adduced one which may have been familiar enough to His hearers, one so easy of execution, involving so little risk, and yet effecting so great and lasting a mischief, that it is not strange, where cowardice and malice meet, that this should have been often the shape in which they displayed themselves. We meet traces of it in many quarters. In Roman law the possibility of this form of injury is contemplated; and a modern ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... canteens, belts; and McDunn, white with rage, whipped out his revolver and fired into them as they rushed by in a torrent of red dust. From his distorted mouth vile epithets poured; he cursed and damned their cowardice, and, standing up in his stirrups, riding like a cossack at full speed, attempted to use his sabre on the fugitives from the front. But there was no stopping them, for the poor fellows had been sent into fire ignorant how ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the period is opposed to this theory of cowardice. There was nothing special for him to fear when Caesar was in Gaul, and Crassus about to start for Syria, and Pompey for his provinces. Such was the condition of Rome, social and political, that all was uncertain and all ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... concerned, this society of soldier-citizens was singularly successful. The courage and efficiency of Spartan troops were notorious, and were maintained indeed not only by the training we have described, but by social penalties attached to cowardice. A man who had disgraced himself in battle was a pariah in his native land. No one would eat with him, no one would wrestle with him; in the dance he must take the lowest place; he must give the wall at meetings in the street, and resign his seat even to ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... from the tenor of his speech that he would be an easy victim. As he knew, Dick very seldom was concerned in any street fight,—not from cowardice, as he imagined, but because he had too much good sense to do so. Being quarrelsome, like all bullies, and supposing that he was more than a match for our hero, being about two inches taller, he could ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... which is also, like all untruths, the Devil's? Only in the world's last lethargy can such things be done, and accounted safe and pious! Fools! "Do you think the Living God is a buzzard idol," sternly asks Milton, that you dare address Him in this manner?—Such darkness, thick sluggish clouds of cowardice and oblivious baseness, have accumulated on us: thickening as if towards the eternal sleep! It is not now known, what never needed proof or statement before, that Religion is not a doubt; that it is a certainty,—or else a mockery and horror. ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... like to be repelled by the whole business. The title, to begin with, is an irony as grim as anything that follows, in what sense you will find as the story reveals itself. The Romantic is a picture—what do I say? a vivisection—of cowardice, seen through the horrified eyes of a woman who loved the subject of it. The scene is the Belgian battlefields, to which John Conway, being unfitted for active service, had taken out a motor-ambulance, with Charlotte Redhead as one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness &c 149; fluctuation; alternation &c (oscillation) 314; caprice &c 608. fickleness, levity, legerete [Fr.]; pliancy &c (softness) 324; weakness; timidity &c 860; cowardice &c 862; half measures. waverer, ass between two bundles of hay; shuttlecock, butterfly; wimp; doughface [U.S.]. V. be irresolute &c adj.; hang in suspense, keep in suspense; leave "ad referendum"; think twice about, pause; dawdle ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hung. He knew that for some reason those commands were meant for him, and him alone; he knew that the desperate plunges of his comrades were not inspired by cowardice or fear, but not until the birch bark ground upon the shore and he tumbled out in safety did he fully comprehend what had happened. Holding the rope with which they tied their canoe, Wabigoon had taken a desperate chance. His quick mind had leaped ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... silence is of cowardice and the passage is a fling at the "timeserving" of the Olema, a favourite theme, like "banging the bishops" amongst ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... The cowardice of Borotte was almost ridiculous. He dared not harm the girl, and her brothers could not prevent her harming him. Here there came a knocking at the front door. The other brothers had come, and found it locked. Pierre saw the crisis, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and another, to incur his disfavor, and he tried to punish them all. He was always—after the war—the central figure of a court-martial or a Congressional inquiry, was accused of everything, from stealing to cowardice, was banished to obscure posts, "jumped on" by the press, traduced in public and in private, and always emerged triumphant. While Signal Officer, he went up against the Secretary of War and put him ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... and die in a slave-holding community, and entertaining no ideas different from those, which commonly prevail here, I have watched the course of my associate's argument with the closest attention. The point he is making, I am sure, is most pertinent to the case,—a point it would be cowardice in the prisoner's counsel not to make; and I must beg your honor to deliberate well before you undertake to stop the mouths of counsel, and to take care that you have full constitutional warrant for ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... is a filthy thing: without the husband's knowledge it is a base deceit only worthy of a rascally servant hiding away to betray and befoul his master's honor. How often had he not piteously despised those whom he had known to be guilty of such cowardice! He had broken with some of his friends who had thus dishonored themselves in his eyes.... And now he too was sullied with the same shameful thing! The circumstances of the crime only made it the more odious. He had come to the house a sick, wretched ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped their compressed grating, was commenced or concluded with some outburst of profanity. His presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of blasphemy. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, his death was deplored by no one outside his own house—if indeed it was deplored there; it was regarded by the slaves as a merciful interposition of Providence. Never went there a man to the grave loaded with heavier curses. Mr. Sevier's place was promptly taken by a Mr. Hopkins, and the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the moment. She would rather have received twenty "contracts" with the steel buckle than see that cowardice in her husband. She had her Pa's blood in her, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... belated attempt to right Alma's wrong has killed her father. Alma's desecrated love has turned to fierce idolatry, laying waste Lilian's happiness, and working Henry's complete ruin. Cyril's cowardice has delayed clearing his friend till it is too ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... court made a solemn entry into Utrecht, full of glory, because every where attended with success; though more owing to the cowardice and misconduct of his enemies, than to his own valor or prudence. Three provinces were already in his hands, Guelderland, Overyssel, and Utrecht; Groninghen was threatened; Friezeland was exposed: the only difficulty lay in Holland and Zealand; and the monarch deliberated ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... interrupted. But he had miscalculated the strength of his nerves. Albeit as brave a man as ever stepped, when his enemy was before him, Barney was, nevertheless, strongly imbued with superstitious feelings; and the conflict between his physical courage and his mental cowardice produced a species of wild exasperation, which, he often asserted, was very hard to bear. Scarcely had he resumed his work when a bat of enormous size brushed past his nose so noiselessly that it seemed ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... left the door and returned to his comrades. Ellen had received her first intimation of his cowardice; and his mention of her father's gold started a train of thought that persisted in spite of her efforts to put all her mind to attending her uncle. He grew conscious enough to recognize her working over him, and ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... of wrathful reproach the guilty pair shuddered in strange terror. Then, his anger giving way to a strange calm, he called to his betrayers: "Yours is the sorrow of this day! Not even in death can cowardice and treachery triumph ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a common chapman does he speak! I hate him, soul and body. Cowardice Has set her pale seal on his brow. His hands Whiter than poplar leaves in windy springs, Shake with some palsy; and his stammering mouth Blurts out a foolish froth of empty words Like water from ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... The king answered him coldly, that he hoped it would do, and that he should give himself no trouble about it. His lordship was reduced to the extremity either of going in a leaky ship, or absolutely refusing; which he knew his enemies would impute to cowardice, and as he abhorred the imputation, he resolved, in opposition to the advice of his friends, to hazard all; but at the same time advised several volunteers of quality, not to accompany him in the expedition, as their honour was not so much engaged ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... wished to rule; but when they might, they were afraid. The commons were on their side, the moderate men, the party of law, the lovers of republican government, and for the most part the magistrates; but they shrank from their fortune, "more from cowardice than from goodness, because they exceedingly feared their adversaries." Boniface VIII had no prepossessions in Florence, except for energy and an open hand; the side which was most popular he would have accepted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Courage, too, is cultivated by self-support. A woman who daily faces the outside world may not be braver than one who faces the little world at home, but she probably will be. At the last moment the woman at home may sometimes shirk a task which seems formidable to her, though she may be ashamed of her cowardice; but a woman who has agreed to do a certain thing for a certain sum of money cannot shirk, however frightened she may be, and by degrees she learns to subdue her terror and go cheerfully and ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... ways, the consuls at length said, "Conscript fathers, lest you may say that you were not forewarned, a great disturbance is at hand. We require that they who accuse us most severely of cowardice, would assist us in raising the levies; we shall proceed according to the resolution of the most intrepid amongst you, since it so pleases you." They return to their tribunal, and on purpose commanded one of the most factious of the people, who stood ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... as to form part of the residuary impression of the country, might be carried away out of the system. Hence they put them up with a light heart on the cackling of their coteries, and they and their children had to live, often enough, with some wordy windbag whose cowardice had cost the country untold loss in ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler |
