"Cowardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "such a selfish being? Have you forgotten his attempting to jump into the boat, at the hazard of oversetting it, and of drowning my father and Godfrey, who went out to save him—and when my father warned him—and promised to return for him—selfish, cowardly creature!" ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... not brave, but cowardly. I was so afraid you would be prejudiced against me; and you must know that I have taken a great fancy to you. I am a very strange creature: I always like or dislike a person at first sight, and I never—perhaps I should say I ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Plato derives woman and all the animals from man, by successive degradations. Cowardly or unjust men are born again as women. Light, airy, and superficial men, who carried their minds aloft without the use of reason, are the materials for making birds, the hair being transmuted into feathers and wings. From men wholly without philosophy, who never looked heavenward, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... galleries had been driven for mines. At all times soldiers, even the bravest, have found it difficult to withstand the panic brought about by the explosion of mines, and by that underground warfare in which bravery and strength were alike unavailing, and where the bravest as well as the most cowardly were liable at any moment to be blown into the air, or smothered underground. The dangers of this service, at all times great; were immensely aggravated by the extraordinary pains taken by those who had constructed ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... collected, which the sentries continued slowly forcing back, although they were then fifty yards from the wire. As the news spread the crowd became larger, but remained ominously quiet, the two Germans not seeming to realise the danger of their position. It is the worst feeling I know to watch a cowardly display of this sort and yet be able to do absolutely nothing. It only needed a spark to set everything in a blaze, which must have ended in the guard being turned out for machine-gun practice. Meanwhile, the news reached some Britishers ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... since I've thought on th' matter to-day I've thought we han all on us been more like cowards in attacking the poor like ourselves; them as has none to help, but mun choose between vitriol and starvation. I say we're more cowardly in doing that than in leaving them alone. No! what I would do is this. Have at the masters!" Again he shouted, "Have at the masters!" He spoke lower; all ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... different somehow, from what they did when we were sitting around the cheery camp-fire, listening to stories told by the guides," Thad admitted. "But then, wolves as a rule are cowardly brutes. They may do a heap of howling, but they seldom show any bravery. Only when in packs are they feared by hunters, away up in the frozen-up parts of ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... that it might be five years of sorrow and shame for his mother and sister; that it might be an everlasting stain on the name of his dead father—my friend. He talked of killing himself: I told him he was a cowardly fool. He asked me to give him up to the authorities: I told him I intended to take the law in my own hands and give him another chance; and then he broke down. I transferred him that very day, without giving him time to communicate ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... acceptance, it is dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions of what is due to truth and manhood and self-respect, be the consequences what they may. Because a few are so, the world moves. The general voice always comes in as a chorus to a few particular voices. As for friends who cannot appreciate independence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... retaliates on "Mr. Southey and his 'pious preface'" in many words; but when it comes to the point, ignores the charge of having "published a lascivious book," and endeavours by counter-charges to divert the odium and to cover his adversary with shame and confusion. "Mr. S.," he says, "with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated 'death-bed repentance' of the objects of his dislike; and indulges himself in a pleasant 'Vision of Judgment,' in prose as well as verse, full of impious impudence.... I am not ignorant," he adds, "of Mr. Southey's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... to the last degree in some matters, just as he is cowardly in others. I would give something to know if ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... you were the most cowardly girl on earth—afraid of your own shadow—and always in hysterics over something, so that she and Ela were sorry you came, dreading that you ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... call it very cowardly to want to get out of your difficulties in that way. Think what you inflict on other people. You men, you're all selfish. The burden is ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... you could be so mean and cowardly,' she cried. 'You ought to be ashamed to talk about people behind their backs, when—when—besides, if he's what you say, how did it happen that you engaged me on ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... erroneously. Travelers crossing the plains were always on the defensive, and ever ready to commence war on any Indian who came within the radius of their firearms. When I was a boy I read in my reader: "Lo, the cowardly Indian." The picture above this sentence was that of an Indian in war paint, holding his bow and arrow, ready to shoot a white man ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... wher (as I said afore) thei haue in all handi worckes a passing subtiltie of witte, yet in the knowledge of heauenly thinges, thei are altogether to learne: that is to saie, the are vtterly ignoraunt. A cowardly people and very feareful of death. Yet exercise thei a maner of warre, but that thei handle rather by witte, and pollicie, then by strength and hardinesse. In their fighte thei use a kinde of shaftes, and certaine other weapons of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... measure as they believed the Governor would have stamina enough to select commissioners who would enforce the prohibitory law. This board was abolished at the special session of the Legislature in 1897, as it was made a scapegoat for city and county officers who were too cowardly or too unfriendly to enforce the liquor ordinances, and it did not effect the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... battle—they will not face the unknown, the terrible, the harpies that come at night, borne on the hurricane wings of panic. Unhappily, De Sylva and his bodyguard were the messengers of their own disaster. The cowardly genius at Pesqueira had planned a surprise. He would not lead it, of course, but in Dom Miguel Barraca he found an eager substitute. It was a coup of the Napoleonic order; an infantry attack along the entire front of the Liberationist position cloaked the launching against the center of a formidable ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... our neighbour to light his candle at our lamp. To do so will enrich him, without making us a jot the poorer. We should indeed respect the right of private judgment, and scarcely in any case allow our will to supersede his will in his own proper province. But we should on no account suffer any cowardly fears for ourselves, to induce us to withhold from him any assistance that our wider information or our sounder judgment might ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... strangely silent here, the few bird-cries that reached me coming from a long distance. I had flattered myself that the voice had become to some extent intelligible to me: its outburst of anger caused no doubt by my cowardly flight after the Indian; then its recovered friendliness, which had induced me to return; and finally its desire to be followed. Now that it had led me to this place of shadow and profound silence ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... excellent recipe in such cases, but somewhat difficult in a heavy sea. Others said that there was a doomed man on board, and proposed to cast lots till they found him out, and cast him into the sea, as a sacrifice to Aegir the wave-god. But Hereward scouted that as unmanly and cowardly, and sang,— ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... bullies he was cowardly, and the unexpected resistance and the pain of the blow quite overcame his fortitude, and he cried ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... Francis Effendi, is one of the most powerful writers of modern Syria. The paper of the Sitt Mariana is long, and the introduction is most ornate and flowery. She writes on the condition of woman among the Arabs, and refutes an ancient Arab slander against women that they are cowardly and avaricious, because they will not fight, and carefully hoard the household stores. ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... it, how we often are reminded of funny things even in the midst of danger? Bill, a cripple and unable to move about with the agility needed to fend off a cowardly attack by this miserable piker, showed the stuff he was made of when he burst out laughing, for he was reminded by this threat of that old yarn about a softy's threatening to break the umbrella of his rival found in the vestibule of his girl's ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... the situation for me, and although I am, I hope, neither more selfish nor more cowardly than other men, I could not help doing that. Here was I, the chief and head of his Majesty's garrison at Corgarff Castle, standing defence on the door-step of a Jacobite household. Why was I there at all? What was I there to accomplish? How was I to ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... the floor, as though to intercept the word; but Louis continued, apparently unmoved by his anger—'Those poor little children. If misfortune and injury be no disgrace to the injured, I call it cowardly pride to fly off by night to hide oneself, instead of living in your own ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brother's bicycle on the porch and pedaled off after Dick. She knew exactly the way he would take. From Migwan's house he would go up Adams to Locust Street and from there to ——th Avenue, and keep on going until he came to the dark tunnel. Sahwah nearly burst with indignation when she thought of Joe's cowardly conduct. He was calmly getting Abraham to do the dirty work for him, so he would never be suspected of having anything to do with it in case Dick recognized Abraham. She could see how the thing would work out. Abraham lived just the other side ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... it was. His behaviour might seem cowardly, but—to say nothing of the loathsomeness of a wrestle with Slimy—he knew very well that any struggle, or a shout for help, would mean his death. He hesitated, felt ashamed, but looked at Slimy's red eye, and lay down. In taking the position indicated, he noticed ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... second attack. The Parthians, carrying the head of Publius fixed on a spear, rode close up to the Romans, and, displaying it insultingly, asked who were his parents and family, for it was not decent to suppose that so noble and brave a youth was the son of so cowardly and mean a man as Crassus. The sight of this broke and unstrung the spirit of the Romans more than all the rest of their dangers; and it did not fill them with a spirit for revenge, as one might have supposed, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... recognised the sound, but, uncanny as it was, he wondered why the howl of a wolf should disturb a lot of Indians who must know, even better than he, the cowardly nature of the beast, and that there was no chance of his ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... them!' since, as I think in mine heart, many men and women trust so mickle in me in this case, that I would not, for the saving of my life, do thus to them. For if I thus should do, full many men and women would, as they might full truly, say that 'I had falsely and cowardly forsaken the Truth, and slandered shamefully the Word of GOD!' For if I consented to you, to do hereafter your will, for bonchief and mischief that may befall to me in this life, I deem in my conscience that I were worthy ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... starts, aside) From my father-in-law. (reads to himself) "Have learnt from local registrar your cowardly conduct in eloping with my daughter—am on my way to ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient
... willing, then, wretched Dick—are you willing, false friend—that this glory should belong to another? Must I then be untrue to my past history; recoil before obstacles that are not serious; requite with cowardly hesitation what both the English Government and the Royal Society of London ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... why he gave this advice, but he knew very well that if they were to remain quiet for an instant the cowardly sharks would make a dart at them, and that only by splashing vigorously could they keep off the monsters. He himself did so with his legs and one hand, while he placed the other under his friend's back. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... abashed at the remembrance of my wild flights, and had a laugh at the thought of myself floundering around in the marshes and fields a mile from home, when Harriet, no doubt, had breakfast waiting for me! What absurd, contradictory, inconsistent, cowardly creatures we ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... She despised us still. And I would have staked my last dollar, or, better, my hopes of escaping from Farallone, that as man and wife she and the groom would never live together again. I felt terribly sorry for the groom. He had, as had I, been utterly inefficient, helpless, babyish, and cowardly—yet the odds against us had seemed overwhelming. But now as we journeyed down the river, and the distance between us and Farallone grew more, I kept thinking of men whom I had known; men physically weaker than the groom and I, who, had Farallone ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... and they both fell silent before the common thought. In the practice of his profession he had done this for her, in obedience to the cowardly rules of that profession. He had saved life—animation—to this mass of corruption. Except for his skill, this waste being would have gone its way quietly to death, thereby purifying all life by that little. He added at last ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and headstrong, but unfortunately Hector was inflexible and wilful: when once he had made up his mind upon any point, he had too good an opinion of his own judgment to give it up. At last, he declared his intention, rather than remain a slave to such cowardly fears as he now deemed them, to go forth boldly, and endeavour to ascertain what the Indians were about, how many there were of them, and what real danger was to be apprehended ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... him, not because he had taken food from the woman—she had bestowed it with the friendly and unpatronizing graciousness of poor women—but because he had been too cowardly to play the mouth-organ. When Mother had begun to walk wearily and Father had convinced himself that he wouldn't be afraid to play, next chance he had, they approached a crude road-house, merely a roadside saloon, with carriage-sheds, a beer sign, and one lone rusty iron outdoor ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... to do it himself, assisted by one of the party. When he returned to camp with the horses, he found that his men had killed McIntire. At this act of cruelty to a prisoner, he was exceedingly indignant; declaring that it was a cowardly act to kill a man when tied and a prisoner. The conduct of Tecumseh in this engagement, and in the events of the following morning, is creditable alike to his courage and humanity. Resolutely brave in battle, his arm was never uplifted against a prisoner, nor did he suffer violence to be inflicted ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... Judge Nelson said, "to inform you three that this court cannot convict you of the cowardly murder of that learned and honorable old man, Silas Cumshaw, nor can you be brought to trial in any other court on New Texas again for that dastardly crime. Here are your weapons, which must be returned to you. Sort them out yourselves, because I won't dirty my fingers on them. And ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... have wondered, why no letter has come from me. What you wrote at your return, had in it such a strain of cowardly caution as gave me no pleasure. I could not well do what you wished; I had no need to vex you with a refusal. I have seen Mr. ——[596], and as to him have set all right, without any inconvenience, so far as I know, to you. Mrs. Thrale had forgot ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... so scared," the younger lad replied, with the characteristic desire of a boy not to be thought cowardly, "I just got to wondering, ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... right. Something in what you say, I suppose. Consider you treacherous worm and contemptible, spineless cowardly custard, but have booked Spink-Bottle. Stay where you are, then, and I hope you get run over by an omnibus. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... together, Owen County boys are as brave as a warrior; single-handed and alone, they are as cowardly as ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... initials "X.X."; but it had plainly been floated for the first time into the business at a period of great depression some six years ago. The name of a distinguished royal personage had been mentioned by rumor in connection with this sum. "The cowardly desperado"—such, I remember, was the editorial expression—was supposed to have escaped with a large part of this mysterious fund still ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... soldiers happened to elbow a lieutenant the other day, and the chap ran him through with his sword, and no one called him to account. The officers jostle and browbeat any civilian who will submit to it, and then try to get him into a duel, but I believe they're a cowardly lot at bottom. No man of real courage would bluster all ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... whither he had retreated. He was stigmatized by Napoleon as a "sort of robber, who had covered himself with crimes in the last Prussian campaign." In repeated public utterances the Emperor of Austria was characterized as cowardly, thankless, and perjured, while the Viennese were addressed as "good people, abandoned and widowed." The last acts of their flying rulers had been murder and arson; "like Medea, they had with their own hands ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Lady L——, who had been spoken to, I believe, by Lady Gertrude, were both on his side—[I shall have this man utterly ruined for a husband among you]— When there were three to one, it would have looked cowardly to yield, you know. I was brave. But it being proposed for Sunday, and that being at a little distance, it was not doubted but I would comply. So the night passed off, with prayings, hopings, and a little mutteration. [Allow me that word, or find me a better.] ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... into the background and thought over the work he had in hand. It was of great importance and dangerous. When war came he might be shot at any time if his doings were discovered. He was accustomed to dangers; many times had he risked his life; bad though he was, there was nothing cowardly about him. He had some contempt for death, although he dearly loved life. There are bad men who are brave, and such was he—brave, that is, in so far as he cared little for risks so long as ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... once on my feet my voice shook and my mind wandered. I hated the thought of people behind me looking at me. I rarely summoned the courage to turn my head either one way or the other. I vastly admired the "bravery" of the small, 15-year-old boy who recited so calmly and so well. I was too cowardly to play foot-ball and base-ball, and I dreaded even my favorite tennis because the spectators put me in a state of scared self-consciousness. Knowing my own condition, I was yet so blind to it most of the time, and such a Jekyll-and-Hyde, that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the citizen Tallien. Either in eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be a curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to risk his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his sake meets death—who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed he must ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... done homage, and who remained hard-hearted in order that he might go on praising her and making her famous, and he gives her a hint that he will try the effect of a little blame. Sannazaro, in two magnificent sonnets, threatens Alfonso of Naples with eternal obscurity on account of his cowardly flight before Charles VIII. Angelo Poliziano seriously exhorts (1491) King John of Portugal to think betimes of his immortality in reference to the new discoveries in Africa, and to send him materials to ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... loud and decidedly: "Jeanne, you have no right to make disposition of this life. What you are doing is cowardly and almost criminal; you are sacrificing your child to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... threatening to cut down any one who again attempted to strike him. Huckstep cursed my awkwardness, and told Harry to put down his hoe and came to him. He refused to do so and swore he would kill the first man who tried to lay hands on him. The cowardly tyrant shrank away from his enraged bondman, and for two weeks Harry was ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... JOHN, a character in Shakespeare's "Henry IV." and the "Merry Wives of Windsor"; a boon companion of Henry, Prince of Wales; a cowardly braggart, of sensual habits and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... told you, is too cowardly to meet my cousin in open fight. Since he got the challenge he has never stuck his nose out of doors without two or three of the duke's guard about him. Therefore we have the right to get at him as we can. We have paid a man in the house to tell of his movements. He is to fare out secretly ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... Herald complains significantly, at a later date, of "the cowardly and hypocritical Socialistic platforms of the two older parties," while Mr. Berger was lately predicting that Senator La Follette would be "told to get out" of the Republican Party. The reformer who was so recently "retrogressive" had now become a ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... tried to discover some refuge or chance for escape; but, as it was an open bit of the road, and a straight way to the lane, she could have no excuse for scrambling over the stone wall and cutting short the distance. However, her second thought scorned the idea of running away in such cowardly fashion, and not having any recent misdemeanor on her ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... repeated, in an indifferent tone. "Oh, Cuthbert is of no consequence: his father always said so. A lame, sickly, cowardly child! If we had had a strong, healthy lad of our own, Mark would not have put Wyvis in Cuthbert's place, but with a boy like Cuthbert, what would you expect him ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the French Presidency there were those who regarded the act as weak, cowardly, undutiful and otherwise censurable. It seems to me the act, not of a feeble man, but of a strong one—not that of a coward, but that of a gentleman. Indeed, I hardly know where to look in history ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... to whirl on her, shake her out of the cowardly refuge of sleep, and resume the wrangle that had ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... antagonists, who lays out for himself that way of repairing the shortcomings of fortune, who looks to that resource as an aid to his means,—is worse, much worse, than the public robber! He is meaner, more cowardly, and has I think in his bosom less of the feelings of an honest man. And he probably has been educated,—as you have been. He calls himself a gentleman. He should know black from white. It is considered ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... her a little 'blue' ragamuffin, father," said Harry, who ran in looking very angry; "but I have given it to them; they won't insult my sister again. I have given them a thrashing they will remember; a set of cowardly, ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... done, I am conscious, to expose messieurs the sergeants of the watch to the liability of cudgelling beneath this cassock the humerus of a Pythagorean philosopher. But what would you have, my reverend master? 'tis the fault of my ancient jerkin, which abandoned me in cowardly wise, at the beginning of the winter, under the pretext that it was falling into tatters, and that it required repose in the basket of a rag-picker. What is one to do? Civilization has not yet arrived at ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... picturesque comparison as every witty Irish peasant uses in talk, to the delight of himself and his hearers. But the individuality lies deeper than phrases: Falstaff takes his private standard into battle with him. There is nothing more obviously funny than the short paunchy man, let us not say cowardly, but disinclined to action, who finds himself engaged in a fight. Lever has used him a score of times (beginning with Mr. O'Leary in the row at a gambling-hall in Paris), and whether he runs or whether he fights, his efforts to do either are grotesquely laughable. ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... declared,(99) that the Pythia "philippized;" and bade the Athenians and Thebans remember that Pericles and Epaminondas, instead of listening to, and amusing themselves with, the frivolous answers of the oracle, those idle bugbears of the base and cowardly, consulted only reason in the choice ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... assent from two or three sailors standing round, for in those days the use of the knife was almost unknown in England, and was abhorrent to Englishmen, both as being cowardly and unfair, and as being a ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Panay, chiefly on the villages of Bataan, Domayan, and Mahanlur, and in those of Aclan and Bahay, where they captured many of our Indians, and burned the churches of the visitas. The visitas are usually deserted, and have no houses to defend them; and those Camucones are very cowardly and very different from the Joloans and Mindanaos, who are valiant, and much more so the latter named. The Camucones entered by the river and bar of Batan, which is salt water, where a very grievous jest happened to two or three of their craft. The river of Batan has another river a short distance ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... what I supposed you would say, Mr. Kenton, but I must say I didn't expect it of you. I think it's cowardly." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... never understand myself about that. I'm always in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... no matter at what price. To these motives of condescending kindness there had come to be joined of late a sentiment of pity and indignation in the face of the tenacity with which the unfortunate man was being persecuted, the cowardly and merciless war so ably managed, that public opinion, always credulous and with neck outstretched to see which way the wind is blowing, was beginning to be seriously influenced. One must do to Mora the justice of admitting ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... spirits are as much stronger than our bodies as they are nobler and more permanent? The historic muse appears in her loftiest character as the nurse of Hope. It is her appropriate praise that her records enable the magnanimous to silence the selfish and cowardly by appealing to actual events for the information of these truths which they themselves first learned from the surer ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... necessary to speak here against the practical morality of Old Testament saints; the very names of Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, etc., bring before the mind's eye a list of crimes so foul, so cowardly, so bloody, that no enumeration of them can be needed. Of them, we may fairly say ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... under the feathers and were warm, and when the sealskin dwarfs tried to take the feathers away, the grouse and his friends flew in their faces with flappings and screams, and drove the dwarfs back. They are a cowardly folk. ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... and any number of persons may ride in the cab without extra charge. Nothing exceeds my scorn for the English taxi-driver who demands another ninepence for an additional passenger, even though only a child—nothing except my scorn for the cowardly official ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... observation, "Where much is attempted, something is done." Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character I would wish to be thought to possess: and have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... about you I don't know," she repeated, leisurely inspecting him. "Shall I tell you something? I am not afraid to; I am not a bit cowardly ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... got shot in the thigh, by whom or how I do not now remember, but he was a different sort of man from the boy just mentioned. We knew him to be quite a brave, nervy man in action, having been in one of our fighting scrapes with rustlers; but as a patient he showed a most cowardly disposition, developing a ferocious temper, rejecting medical advice, cursing everybody who came around, so that he lay for months at our charge, until we really got to wish that he would carry out his threat of self-destruction. He did not, but he was crippled for life and did ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... been anything in the experience of which I need feel ashamed, I should have felt it necessary to let him know it before we were married. I thought it all over then, and decided it was wiser not to bring the matter up. It was weak and cowardly not to do it, I can see that now, but at the time I thought I was acting ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... be made to feel it's cowardly to use a nom de plume if you want to. It isn't likely to do any harm, and it may save ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... to the girl, it left one thought sharp, alive, in the exhausted quiet of her brain: a cowardly dread of the trial of the day, when she would see him again. Was the old struggle of years before coming back? Was it all to go over again? She was worn out. She had been quiet in these two years: what had gone before she never looked back upon; but it made her thankful for even this stupid quiet. ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... into a "Party of Order." The next thing to do was to remove the bourgeois republicans who still held the seats in the National Assembly. As brutally as these pure republicans had abused their own physical power against the people, so cowardly, low-spirited, disheartened, broken, powerless did they yield, now when the issue was the maintenance of their own republicanism and their own legislative rights against the Executive power and the royalists I need not here narrate the shameful history ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... hunting set in England. A gay young lord wins in love against his selfish and cowardly brother ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... beast about three feet long, with a short stubbed tail, and might easily be mistaken for a large wild-cat. Its fur, which is short and very thick, and of a beautiful silver gray, is much used for muffs, tippets, and fur trimming. The lynx is a cowardly beast, and seldom attacks anything larger than hares, squirrels, and birds. It will sometimes rob a sheep-fold, as the gentle and pretty lambs have no means of defense ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... seated opposite Jacinth, and as she got to her last words, some consciousness made her glance across the table at her elder niece. In an instant she saw her mistake, and recalled her own vague warnings to the girls to avoid allusions to Lady Myrtle's family history. But she was far from cowardly, and essentially candid. And in her mind there had been no mingling of any selfish motive; nothing but the desire to prevent any possible annoyance to their kind old friend had prompted her few words of advice to the girls. And now the strange look—a look almost of restrained ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... cowardly," he said. "During all last night I begged for mercy of these walls," and he pointed to the sides of his dungeon. "Yes, yes, I howled with despair, I rebelled, I suffered the most awful moral agony—I was alone! Now I think of what others will say of me. Courage ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... false shame whispered that it would be cowardly to give way, and that doubtless the fulfillment of the pretended witch's former prediction ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... been torn by doubt. At the back of his mind he had always known he was going. Had he not written saying he was going, and wasn't that enough? And he thought for a moment of what her opinion of him would be if he stayed in Garranard. In a cowardly moment he hoped that something would happen to save him from the ultimate decision, and ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... were any such cowardly males among them, but they could not prove it. The men were growing more and more silent, partly through anxiety and partly with grim confidence that no way could be found to force this issue of suffrage on the voters of the county. The women remained maliciously silent on this point. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... with new apprehension, the eyes of Snake le Vasquez glittered with new hope. He faced his steely eyed opponent for an instant only, then with a snarl like that of an angry beast sprang upon him. Benson met the cowardly attack with the flash of a powerful fist, and the outlaw fell to the floor with a hoarse cry of rage and pain. But he was quickly upon his feet again, muttering curses, and again he attacked his grim-faced antagonist. Quick ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... are recurrent evermore. Christianity itself has been an uninterrupted series of supernatural events. The physical miracles of Christ are nothing to the spiritual miracles which Christianity is always working. Bad men are made good, weak men strong, cowardly men brave, ignorant and foolish men wise, by a supernatural influence given in answer to prayer, poured down into hearts and minds which open themselves to receive it. The conversion of a bad man by the power of Christianity is a miracle. The power of faith, hope, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... bidding, Senorito," said Paco, "were it only for old acquaintance sake. But let that cowardly Asturian beware how he meets me in the mountains. I have missed him once, but will answer for not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... gravely. "When you've basely deceived and tricked somebody it's cowardly to run away. The straightest thing is to stay with that person and try ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... having attempted murder, and having betrayed his country for money, the devil considered him as his own, and this Mr Vanslyperken did not approve of; for, like many others in this world, he wished to commit every crime, and go to heaven after all. Mr Vanslyperken was superstitious and cowardly, and he did believe that such a thing was possible; and when he canvassed it in his mind he trembled, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... long for any one. When it was over, the soul of Jurgis was a song, for he had met the enemy and conquered, and felt himself the master of his fate.—So it might be with some monarch of the forest that has vanquished his foes in fair fight, and then falls into some cowardly ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Allerton looked round for the policeman who occasionally passed that way; but though a lighted car crashed down Madison Avenue there was no one in sight. He might have called in the hope of waking the men upstairs, but that seemed cowardly. Though in a physical encounter with a ruffian like this he could hardly help getting the worst of it—especially in his state of half intoxication—it was the encounter itself that he loathed, even more than the defeat. "Oh, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Captain Dalton the conversation she had overheard at the mela. Her father had scoffed at it, and Tommy had treated it with indifference, explaining that all pioneers of progress in India had to put up with opposition, threats, and bluff. The natives of Bengal were too cowardly to risk their necks—didn't she remember her Macaulay? After all, there was really nothing ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... exclaimed the butcher who was now completely crestfallen. "Why, that's the very dog! That's the very dog that came by my shop late last night in the howling storm, and my dog Tiger went at him and tousled him up completely. I never saw such a cowardly cur; he wouldn't show any fight, although he was pretty near as big as a donkey; and there my dog Tiger nearly ate half of him, and dragged the other half about the gutter, till he looked more like an old door-mat than dog; and I thought he must have killed him; and here ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... examination, unfortunately forestalled by his death. All explanations, and all accusations have failed before the severe justice of history and the infallible instinct of the public conscience. The odious burden of a cowardly assassination was constantly weighing upon him who had ordered it. The blood of his victim created round him an abyss that all the efforts of supreme power could ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... having again commenced aggressions on our people, and the Great Spirit having taken pity on me, I took a small party and went against them. I could only find six of them, and their forces being so weak, I thought it would be cowardly to kill them, but took them prisoners and carried them to our Spanish father at St. Louis, gave them up to him and then returned ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... not one sound, healthy sentiment in the whole of our religious state of being. You frequently hear it said: "Everyone can't be a hypocrite." True enough. But begin, in the middle classes, to deduct hypocrisy, and gross affectation and cowardly dread of Hell, and see ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... personal cowardice and pusillanimity of witnessing fifteen hundred of his devoted adherents cut down, among whom were a great number of the leading gentlemen of the clan, who deserved to fight under a better and less cowardly commander. Among those who fell were Campbell of Auchinbreck, Campbell of Lochnell, his eldest son, and his brother Colin; Macdougall of Rara, and his eldest son, Major Menzies, brother to the Chief of Achattens Parbreck, and the Provost of the Church ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... these animals, would rush at them as far as the lariat would allow, and would either strike at them with his fore feet, or, swinging around quickly, would so vigorously lash out with his hind legs that the cowardly brutes would quickly skulk ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... revolver and threatening to fire, I hold it utter idiocy. I have never tried it, however, so I speak from prejudice which arises from the feeling that there is something cowardly in it. Always have your revolver ready loaded in good order, and have your hand on it when things are getting warm, and in addition have an exceedingly good bowie knife, not a hinge knife, because with a hinge knife you have got to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... his horse and labored with desperation to rally them. His pains were thrown away. The lansquenets continued their course, and D'Andelot, who scarcely escaped falling into the enemy's hands, probably concurred in the verdict pronounced on them by a contemporary historian, that no more cowardly troops had entered the country in fifty years.[210] It was at this moment that the Duke of Guise, who had with difficulty held his impatient horse in reserve on the Roman Catholic right, gave the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Hordeonius Flaccus stood by and watched their 56 treachery. He had not the courage to check the storm or even to rally the waverers and encourage the faithful. Sluggish and cowardly, it was mere indolence that kept him loyal. Four centurions of the Twenty-second legion, Nonius Receptus, Donatius Valens, Romilius Marcellus, and Calpurnius Repentinus, who tried to protect Galba's statues, were swept away by ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... pretend to judge of the acts of the rulers of earth," replied he gloomily. "Perhaps the deeds which in ordinary people would be called cowardly, may with them be great and noble. I know nothing about it; but I know what my beloved empress once said to me. She was then young and energetic, and she had not forgotten the oath she had taken when the archbishop crowned her at St. Stephen's—the oath which bound her to be a faithful ruler over ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach |
