All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit. Certainly that was my conviction back in the summer of 1968. Tim O'Brien: a secret hero. The Lone Ranger. If the stakes ever became high enough—if the evil were evil enough, if the good were good enough—I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years. Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory. It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future.
Tim O'BrienThose who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
Albert CamusTags: philosophy courage cowardice
The only way to vanquish cowardice is to brandish courage.
Charles M. BlowLike all bullies and marauders, Gos was a coward at heart
L. Frank BaumDo you see the irony at all, Tristan?’
I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. ‘What irony?’ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. ‘That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.
There is more to joy than looking only for affirmation; refusing to be challenged is the only bigotry.
Criss JamiTags: inspirational confidence courage joy security cowardice challenges bigotry affirmation refusal insecurity conflict-resolution
The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynTags: weakness cowardice united-nations the-west
-[...] comme vous me paraissez amateur; car lorsque je suis entré vous regardiez mes tableaux, je vous demande la permission de vous faire voir ma galerie : tous tableaux anciens, tous tableaux de maîtres garantis comme tels ; je n'aime pas les modernes.
-Vous avez raison, monsieur, car ils ont en général un grand défaut : c'est celui de n'avoir pas encore eu le temps de devenir des anciens.
Tags: humor art cowardice repartee ageism
Fear breeds cowardice, and cowardice compels bravery.
Ogwo David EmenikeTags: fear inspirational bravery heroism cowardice hero coward ogwo-david-emenike
Son, never trust a man who doesn’t drink because he’s probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They’re the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They’re usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they’re a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can’t trust a man who’s afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It’s damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he’s heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.
James CrumleyTags: morality philosophy humility drinking cowardice self-righteousness
« first previous
Page 9 of 13.
next last »
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.