"Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II of the UK (since 6 February 1952) head of government: Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief Vice-Admiral Sir John COWARD (since NA 1994) and Bailiff Mr. Graham Martyn DOREY (since February 1992) cabinet: Advisory and Finance Committee (other committees) appointed by the Assembly of the States elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; lieutenant governor ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... no coward by any means, but it took all Scot's eloquence and persuasiveness to induce him to consent to hazard a daylight journey through to Sumner, for he well knew its dangers. Scarcely a week passed without news of some fearful massacre ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... drive him into a corner and pin him to the wall. He very well knows that flitting and skulking from place to place, like an escaped convict, he is safe in writing what insults he pleases through the post. I can't tell how or where to find him. He is not only no gentleman, but no man—a coward as well as a ruffian. But his game of hide-and-seek cannot go on for ever; and when next I can lay my hand upon him, I'll make him eat that paper on his knees, and place ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... only many proper names, like Abeillard, Bayard, Brossard, but appellatives like leccardo, a gourmand, linguardo, a talker, criard, a crier, codardo, Prov. coart, Fr. couard, a coward.[14] That a German word hart, meaning strong, and originally strength, should become a Roman suffix may seem strange; yet we no longer hesitate to use even Hindustani words as English suffixes. In Hindustani vl is used to form many substantives. If Dilli is Delhi, then Dill-vll ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... everything," Gresham charged him with the scorn one coward feels for another. "Your operations out there were spread over ten thousand acres of ground; and it would take a dozen experts six months, without any books or papers to guide them, to make even an approximate estimate ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... legislature "had no more right to repeal the charter than the United States would have to abrogate and make void the constitution of the state, or than Great Britain would have to abolish the constitution of the United States—and the man that says differently is a coward, a traitor to his own rights, and a tyrant; no odds what Blackstone, Kent or Story may have written to make themselves and their names ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... been called a coward behind his back, and it was whispered that his throne would be in danger if that surrender were repeated. He had merited these reproaches because no one had done more than he to inflate the arrogance ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... formed some of us so that we must kill to live and for us to kill is lawful. It is not so with you. You were made to live on seeds and nuts, yet Kag-ax the Weasel, whom we all hate, is scarcely more bloodthirsty than you are. And you are a coward to boot. You haven't the courage to fight and you kill for pleasure and ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... She screamed. Roger sprang forward and struck him in the face. In his fury of sudden rage the strength of ten seemed to animate his slender body and pass into his blow. The sailor reeled back and put up his hands. He was a coward—and even a brave man might have been daunted by that terrible white face and those blazing eyes. He backed ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... coward, but the notion fairly paralyzed him; he could not have moved to save his life. One supreme ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... I will tell you," she said at this juncture. "All the time I have been here my one thought has been of escape. I dreamed nothing else save getting my poor mother away from the clutches of that coward who had hypnotized her in the past, and made her believe he was a good man as well as her cousin from Alsace-Lorraine. And I know of a way ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... clearly as Curran. She thought the soft nature of Horace quite manageable, and if murder were to be done her knife should do it. Oh, to seize his throat with her beautiful hands, to press and squeeze and dig until the blood gorged his face, and to see him die by inches, gasping! He had lied like a coward! Nothing easier to destroy than ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... with a shotgun and bird shot was not my idea of safe sport, but I was too much of a moral coward to acknowledge to Pete that I was frightened. Pete examined his gun, ran his finger over the cartridges in his belt, and went through all the familiar motions which to him were unconscious but always ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... armed. Some of his friends congratulated him on the decided stand he had taken, and hoped he would settle the matter amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury. "Me," he replied, "what, me, condescend to fellowship with a coward, and a low-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I had rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue ocean, with Ambulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascending or descending line of relationship. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lonely with one another. Anybody can go out into the street anywhere in America to-night and be lonely about the peace treaty, the world war, or civil war. Any man can take any crowded street and see for himself. He can pass miles of men who in their hearts are calling him a coward because he has one idea of how to defend America and they have another. If one were to take any ten blocks of Broadway and let all the people walking along stop just where they are and begin talking with ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... borrow a clout from the Boer—to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... doubt but that Patricia did more than her share of snatching. When she played, she played wildly, but she was a coward when pay time came. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... flies, that falls and, falling, dies. To-night, when I saw that you were awake so late, I could not resist the longing I had to speak to you; and I came down stairs. I believe that all the courage of my life has been used up in this single act, and that now I can never be any thing again but a coward. But you will give me courage; you will give me strength; you will help me, will you not? Pepe, my dear cousin, tell me that you will; tell me that I am strong, and I will be strong; tell me that I am not ill, and I will ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... for a long time gazing into the forest after the party of huntsmen. "A murderer and a coward," he said. "In sanctuary he has shed innocent blood. For many evil deeds the price will surely be paid. And the ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... can exist no excuse or reason in the light of which this sin may appear as a human weakness. Because slander is the fruit of deliberate criminal spite, jealousy and revenge, it has a character of diabolism. The calumniator is not only a moral assassin, but he is the most accomplished type of the coward known to man. If the devil loves a cheerful liar, he has one here to ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... needed, Charles. Not one thoroughbred in ten makes good, unless he's got the heart of a coward, and that's just what distinguishes them from mongrels and cross-breds. Like race-horses, they're hot-blooded. They've got sensitiveness, and pride. Pride's the worst. You listen to me. I was born into the business and I've studied it all my life. I'm a success. There's only one reason I'm ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... are gone. Those were the days of great heroes, like the father of her that is now Queen. They were fine men that stood beside him, and one was my own man. I said to him, "This is the time a brave man is sure to be killed. If you come back to me, I'll always think you were a coward." He died along with a thousand of the best men in the kingdom fighting around the King. That was a great day. Four kingdoms at once we fought, and beat them to their knees. Glad enough they were to make peace with the child of ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... latest creation must back, for sure," which puzzled me a good deal at the time, although I understand it now. I began to find out the use of the "Peerage," a book which had seemed to me rather dull before; but, as I was always a coward in a coach, I made myself well acquainted with the dates of creation of our three Warwickshire earls, and was happy to find that Earl Ludlow ranked second, the oldest earl being a hunting widower, and not likely to ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... confident of succeeding in his enterprise without a war. Moreover, that he was then encouraged to despise life by the example of a common soldier, who bringing news of the defeat of the army, and finding that he met with no credit, but was railed at for a liar and a coward, as if he had run away from the field of battle, fell upon his sword at the emperor's feet; upon the sight of which, my father said that Otho cried out, "that he would expose to no farther danger such brave men, who had deserved so well ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... aunt—even the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle—the apprentices—the strange servants— and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. Beware of the man who has been roughly treated as ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... now, for the first time, realized the folly—probably the disaster—of his flight. Might he not be needed at the cottage? Was not his dying wife's prayer for his presence and succour? Had not an unmanly selfishness led him to play the coward? Thoughts like these led him to marshal his resolves, and turn his ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... begged one of Mr Hoggins's worn-out hats to hang up in her lobby, and we (at least I) had doubts as to whether she really would enjoy the little adventure of having her house broken into, as she protested she should. Miss Matty made no secret of being an arrant coward, but she went regularly through her housekeeper's duty of inspection—only the hour for this became earlier and earlier, till at last we went the rounds at half-past six, and Miss Matty adjourned to bed soon after seven, "in order to get ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... around his neck, that gleam with snowy softness in the moonlight against the mournful draperies that fall away from them,—"if I were cold and unfeeling would I do this?" pressing her tender lips to his. "Would I? You know I would not. I am a coward too, and fear you would not look upon my plan as favorably as I do. Darling, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... were both very excellent examples of pure British phlegm and unimaginativeness. This seemed to cast the burden upon me, for Pye was still confined to his cabin. The little man was undoubtedly shaken by the horrid events he had witnessed, and though he was confessedly a coward, I could not help feeling sorry for him. He was an abject creature now, and clung to his bunk, keeping out of the Prince's way and Barraclough's as much as possible, and pestering me ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... and who made the journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceed over the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale, belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must come first; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of virtue there are, but these proceed from caprice. Anger must be conquered by forgiveness; and the wicked must be conquered by honesty; the miser must be conquered by liberality, and falsehood must be conquered by truth. One should not place trust on a woman, a swindler, an idle person, a coward, one that is fierce, one that boasts of his own power, a thief, an ungrateful person, and an atheist. Achievements, period of life, fame, and power—these four always expand in the case of him that respectfully saluteth his superiors and waiteth upon ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... leaving the empty shell unhurt, like a dry skeleton or the slough of a dragon-fly larva. But when wasps or other large and dangerous insects got entangled in the webs, the hunters proceeded with far greater caution. Lucy, indeed, who was a decided coward, would stand and look anxiously at the doubtful intruder for several seconds, feeling the web with her claws, and running up and down in the most undecided manner, as if in doubt whether or not to tackle the uncertain customer. But Eliza, whose spirits always rose like Nelson's before ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... fear. Not all kinds; for there are some things we ought to fear, such as dishonour and pauperism, the fear of which is compatible with dauntless courage, while the coward may not fear them. Fearlessness of what is in our control, and endurance of what is not, for the sake of true honour, constitute the courageous habit. Its excess is rashness or foolhardiness, the deficiency cowardice. Akin to it, but still spurious, is the courage of which the motive ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the gentleman who gambles his friend to desperation, and skulks behind a woman, like the coward he is," sneered Gilbert. ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... too, as well as strength. Power and the consciousness of power do not always go together. In regard to the strength of nature, courage and might are quite separable. There may be a strong coward and a weak hero. But in the spiritual region, strength and courage do go together. The consciousness of the divine power with us, and that alone, will make us bold with a boldness that has no taint of levity and presumption mingled with it, and never will overestimate ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it if a man called you a coward. Don't try my woman's friendship for you too far. You insult me ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... received very severe chastisement from him, but this did not help me; on the contrary, if Auguste interfered in my behalf, my mother would pounce upon me, and I may say that I was stunned with her blows. Auguste appealed to his father, but he dared not interfere. He was coward enough to sit by and see his daughter treated in this way without remonstrance; and, in a short time, I was fast approaching to what my mother declared me to be—a ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Narrow of heart, or free, or brave, or base, Ev'n in the infant we the man may trace; And from the rude ungainly sires may know Each striking trait the polished sons shall show. Dependent on what moods assume the reign, Science shall smile, or spread her stores in vain: As coward fears, or generous passions sway, Shall freedom reign, or heartless slaves obey. "Not unto chance must aught of power be given,— A country's genius is the gift of Heaven. What warms the poet's lays with generous fire, To which no toil can reach, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... mighty rushing wind He falls, subduing space, To where Christ's chosen with one mind Are gathered in one place. With tongues of flame He lights on each, Whose wonder-working spell Fires them in every human speech Heaven's message forth to tell. The coward brood of doubt and fear And hesitance are fled; Before the quickening Comforter They rise as from the dead. The bolted door is yawning wide, The barred gate backward flung; And forth unarmed and fearless-eyed, They fare ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... passion were sufficient exculpations. They invented the doctrine of mental reservation, on which Pascal was so severe. Perjury was allowable, if the perjured were inwardly determined not to swear. A man might fight a duel, if in danger of being stigmatized as a coward; he might betray his friend, if he could thus benefit his party. The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry which confused all established ideas of moral obligation. They tolerated, and some of them justified, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Dammauville face to face had begun to exasperate him; he felt like a coward in yielding to it, and since he had not the force to shake it off, he was happy to be relieved from it by the intervention of chance, which, after having been against him so long, now became ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... destroy you, or at least to get rid of you? I have come to warn you again, and I say to you once more, take me with you to Sudun's castle, where we can live at peace, and do not act as they tell you." "I will carry out my engagement," he replied; "I will not possess you like a coward, even though I should be cut to pieces with swords." Upon this, Shama was angry and left him, while he lay down to rest, but could not sleep. He therefore rose up, saddled and mounted his horse and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... change all your ideas now, Cutlip," he said. "You see that the German is not a superman. We have beaten them. Besides, your country is at war with Germany. Only a traitor, or a coward, would ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... own way," he said. He was a coward at heart, and as he had not been in the plot against Anderson Rover he did not wish to get any ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... comfort oneself with that cheap substitute for immortality! The unconscious processes that take place in nature are lower even than the stupidity of man, since in stupidity there is, anyway, consciousness and will, while in those processes there is absolutely nothing. Only the coward who has more fear of death than dignity can comfort himself with the fact that his body will in time live again in the grass, in the stones, in the toad. To find one's immortality in the transmutation of substances is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a man like salt. A coward cannot long pretend to be brave at sea, nor a fool to be wise, nor a prig to be a good companion, and any venture connected with the sea is full of venture and can pretend to be nothing more. Nevertheless there is a certain pride in keeping a course through different weathers, ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... the boys let him severely alone, but Dan, though he said he despised him for being a coward, watched over him with a grim sort of protection, and promptly cuffed any lad who dared to molest his mate or make him afraid. His idea of friendship was as high as Daisy's, and, in his own rough way, he lived up to ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Turk. I'll not believe it! Why do we wear swords? Where's chivalry? Iduna, a prisoner to the Turk! 'Tis false. It cannot be. Iskander, you are a coward! I am a coward! All are cowards! A prisoner to the Turk! Iduna! What, the Rose of Christendom! has it been plucked by such a turbaned dog as Amurath? Farewell, Epirus! Farewell, classic Athens! Farewell, bright fields of Greece, and dreams that ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Caesar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 'Don't do it for the fun of the thing, Kate. The boys wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,' she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,' says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... e.—Such as Nero, Lucius Domitius, Roman Emperor; born 37; died 68; probably the most prominent type known of wickedness and cruelty, and, nevertheless, a coward. ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... and entered the room. "How could I ever frighten her to death?" she laughed. "It's just your way; you're as great a coward as an ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... notwithstanding his stern face and proud manner, was a coward at heart, fell upon his knees before me trembling and prayed me to spare his life which lay in my hand. Well he knew that if once it came to Kari's ears, even a high priest of the Sun could not hope to escape the reward of such treachery ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... Sebright started. Her daring amazed them both. As for me, I am the greatest coward living, in the matter of surgical operations performed on myself or on others. Lucilla terrified me. I ran headlong across the room to her. I was even fool ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... noticed he was pale, looked wearied, had a gray beard, wore a bluish cap with a faded gold band round it, had on a 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, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... men's reputation as by fire. The lesson, in the judgment of the author, is the danger of disgraceful failure to men who have neglected to keep themselves prepared, not only in knowledge of their profession, but in the sentiment of what war requires. The average man is not a coward; but neither is he endowed by nature only with the rare faculty of seizing intuitively the proper course at a critical moment. He gains it, some more, some less, by experience or by reflection. If both have been ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... word in my ears as I shouted it that awful night when Rover kept me company. Poor old Rover, lying under the snow. If he were only here I should not be quite so desolate. I believe that for the first time in my life I am a coward," and shaking with cold, or fear, or both, Hannah left her father's room and went into the kitchen, where Sam was stuffing ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... I remember that he whistled, as he went through the wood in front of me. Who had given him the breeches on his legs and the hat upon his shallow pate? And the poor little coward had skiddered away, and slept in a furze rick, till famine drove him home. But now he was set up again by gorging for an hour, and chattered as if he had done ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... father if it wasn't my DUTY to love Grandma Irving best, because she's doing so much for me. YOU know, teacher. I wish she would leave the lamp in my room till I go to sleep, though. She takes it right out as soon as she tucks me up because she says I mustn't be a coward. I'm NOT scared, but I'd RATHER have the light. My little mother used always to sit beside me and hold my hand till I went to sleep. I expect she spoiled me. Mothers ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, to-morrow. We had a splendid race. Did you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... country may have some influence in staying the spirit and deeds of violence now so rife, and that they who are so ready to resort to the rifle and revolver may learn to regard them only as the instruments of the coward or ...
— 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
... she would not play the coward's part with it! She brought herself to look it straight in the face. And what she saw was that if she could be brave enough to go herself into a more spacious country, leaving hurts behind, she must not be so cowardly, ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... they went into the kingdom of Mittwoch, the air grew colder and more icy, till even the marrow in their bones was frozen. But Petru was no coward; the fight he had gone through had strengthened his powers of endurance, and he stood the ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... stout heart and stalwart frame; for there is great demand for able-bodied men there, and good prices are paid for bone and muscle. So again I say, have a care, Tom, have a care. I would not have you entertain one coward fear, yet I would have you careful not to provoke needless animosity; for we live in ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... noblest gentleman that ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy to lace—he broke his gallant heart and died. You remember that last night when I came through that door I begged and prayed you for mercy, and you laughed in my face as you are trying to laugh now, only your coward heart cannot keep your lips from twitching? Yes, you never thought to see me here again, but it was that night which taught me how I could meet you face to face, and alone. Well, Charles Milverton, what have you ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... really am afraid I'm a dreadful coward," he suddenly confessed. "I have been rather ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... suspicion and animosity shot from a score of eyes; fists were half-clenched; knives appeared in a trice from the concealment of rags, and a low murmur arose from the gathering. Even the imbecile morio, nature's trembling coward, became suddenly valiant, and, with huge frame uplifted, seemed about to spring savagely upon the fool. An expression of disgust replaced all other feeling on the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... great comfort that we'll have to make our way in the world, and push our fortunes like boys. We'll have plenty of adventures and rise triumphant over them all, and be such a help to you and father. Think of that, May, you little coward," appealing to her younger sister who, in spite of her small dabbling in masculine acquirements, did not look as if the prospect of pushing her fortune like a boy was full of unmixed charm for her. But she brightened up at the visionary ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... said his conscience, "what a miserable coward you are! After all you have promised, you won't risk a laugh for the sake of getting Kitty into ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... call it. I was a conscientious objector: that is, my conviction was it would be sinful to risk a bullet in a chest full of music, like mine—a treasure-chest. But the fools didn't see it in that light. They made America too hot to hold either Giulio di Napoli or Julian O'Farrell. I'm no coward—I swear to you I'm not, my dear girl! You've only to look me square in the face to see I'm not. I'm full of fire. But ever since I was a boy I've lived for my voice, and you can't die for your voice, like you can for your country. It goes—pop!—with you. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... defect is allied to a perfection. Hence it is that if, as often happens, we make a mistake about a man, it is because at the beginning of our acquaintance with him we confound his defects with the kinds of perfection to which they are allied. The cautious man seems to us a coward; the economical man, a miser; the spendthrift seems liberal; the rude fellow, downright and sincere; the foolhardy person looks as if he were going to work with a noble self-confidence; and so on in ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Puff-jaw, you shall not go unpunished for this treachery! You threw me, a castaway, off your body as from a rock. Vile coward! On land you would not have been the better man, boxing, or wrestling, or running; but now you have tricked me and cast me in the water. Heaven has an avenging eye, and surely the host of Mice will punish you ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... a fair field!"—it may be sometimes a coward's apology; but it is many a time the epitome of a great, cramped, tortured, wasted life, which strove like a caged eagle to get free, and never could beat down the bars of the den that circumstances and prejudice had forged. The world sees the few who do reach freedom, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... look, such as is to be seen only in pale blue eyes;—a look of unyielding hatred and obstinacy; a look which, combined with the evident weakness of character displayed in his features, suggested rather the subtle treachery of a coward than the fierce ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... where they might take to the roads and become successful robbers; but 1500 of the worst were selected for a distant expedition—the conquest of the far-off territory of California. And then a general was found who was in all respects worthy of his soldiery. He was pre-eminently the greatest coward in the Mexican army—so great a coward, that he subsequently, without striking a blow, surrendered a fort, with a garrison of 500 men, unconditionally, to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... you take me for a fool?" shouted the injured man, in a great rage. "Don't tell me such cock-and-bull stories. First you insult me, and then you lie like a coward; but I'll teach ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... tree at the end of the avenue, and I saw them riding over the rise. They are going to take the place;" and, without waiting to give any further explanations, he slipped through the house and hid himself up somewhere out of the way at the back, for Jantje, like most Hottentots, was a sad coward. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... bigger!" cried Phoebe indignantly, "and you'm nawthen but a geat coward, Ishmael Ruan. I don't want my pigs ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... that it is the spirit that quickeneth, without which the best of implements profiteth but little. The most improved guns and cannon do not shoot of their own accord; the most modern educational system does not make a coward a hero. No! What won the battles on the Yalu, in Corea and Manchuria, was the ghosts of our fathers, guiding our hands and beating in our hearts. They are not dead, those ghosts, the spirits of our warlike ancestors. To those who have eyes to see, they are clearly visible. Scratch a Japanese ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... beneath the sky be real, those Sons of Freedom would have pistolled, stabbed—in some way slain—that man by coward hands and murderous violence, if he had stood among them at that time. The most confiding of their own countrymen would not have wagered then—no, nor would they ever peril—one dunghill straw, upon the life of any man in such a strait. They tore the letter, cast the fragments in the air, trod ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... stopping to thresh his arms. Late in the evening he saw someone go to the stable, and soon after a double team was driven out. The door of the house opened and a woman came out and entered the carriage. There were good-byes spoken in loud tones with no apparent attempt at concealment. Rodney was no coward, but in his heart he was glad that, instead of two men, he had only one and a woman to deal with. The woman might ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... the words of William Blake: "He who does not love Form more than Colour is a coward." For it is, above all, Form that appeals to Mr. Hardy. The iron plough of his implacable style drives pitilessly through the soft flesh of the earth until it reaches the architectural sub-structure. Whoever tries to visualize any scene out of the Wessex Novels will be forced ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... run away. Even with the anger surging through her, Rose-Marie admitted that the child was not—in one sense—a coward. He had waited, brazenly perhaps, to hear what she had to say. With blazing ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... be honest and speak the truth. Only one who is honest is worthy of trust, and he who tells a lie confesses that he is a coward and afraid to let the truth be known. I will be honest even in little things, and will have no "white lies." Though it may seem a trifle to cheat in school or not play fair in a game, I will be above all trickery and deceit. Both in play and in work my fight ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... say, sir," he said calmly. "You are right. I am a traitor. I would not have been, but—but—well that makes no difference now. You shall see, sir, that I am no coward. I am not afraid to die. Neither need you fear that I shall not do as you command. Thus shall ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... callousness born of long exposure to danger. One of the bravest men I've ever known stood watching the ticker one day during a downward run. Suddenly I heard "My God, I'm ruined!" and he fell in a faint on the floor. And a certain bank officer, whom I knew to be an arrant coward when arrested for stealing a million, smiled at the policeman who had tapped his shoulder and asked him for a light for his cigarette. Addicks had not turned a hair as he hung up the telephone receiver, and here he was cowering in a mortal ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... girth and limb as the other was puny and misshapen, he had plucked off his sandal that with it he might drive the full force of his arguments through the jester's skull. At that the fool, being a very coward, had fled incontinently through ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called trim 'the prince's jester.' This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, because the charge comes sometimes a little too near the truth: therefore Benedick ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... weak imagination!" replied La Corriveau; "your sickly conscience frightens you! You will need to cast off both to rid Beaumanoir of the presence of your rival! The aqua tofana in the hands of a coward is a gift as fatal to its possessor as ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... it is a sin to wish bad luck to an enemy," the widow remarked. "I will do penance for it. Still, I would strew flowers on his grave with the greatest pleasure, and that is the truth. Black-hearted, that he is! The coward couldn't speak up for his own mother, and cheats you out of your share by deceit and trickery. My cousin had a pretty fortune of her own, but unluckily for you, nothing was said in the marriage-contract about anything that she might ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... mind that coward insult and the outrage foul and keen, Flung on Drupad's saintly daughter and our ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,—to tell the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm getting to be an old man,—a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes, when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I do believe it wouldn't have happened,—though it isn't that I mean to lay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... methinks that thou wilt in no sort be a coward and a weakling, if indeed in thy youth the gods thus follow with thee to be thy guides. For truly this is none other of those who keep the mansions of Olympus, save only the daughter of Zeus, the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... me,' she said. 'Only the Jew thinks he's going to show his courage. But he's the biggest coward of them all, really, because he's afwaid what people will think about him—and Julius doesn't care ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Sir," responded Solomon, civilly; but his thick lips curled contemptuously, and he muttered, "So this man is lily-livered after all; so much the better: it is well to have a coward for ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... say as he hid under the table. "As long as there are roses and lilies on the earth shall I not remain here?" would come the voice of the citizen from under the bed. It would be quite as easy to defend the coward as a kind of poet and mystic as it has been, in many recent books, to defend the emotionalist as a kind of poet and mystic, or the tyrant as a kind of poet and mystic. When that last grand sophistry and morbidity is preached in a book or on a ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... carried back to the city a brief response from David Windom. In a shaken, sprawling hand he informed her that if she ever decided to return to her home ALONE, he would receive her and forgive her for the sake of the love he bore her, but if she came with the coward who stole her away from him, he would kill him ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... him a coward, for you must remember he was hardly sixteen years old at the time, and that this was the first affair of the sort he had encountered. Afterward, as you shall learn, he showed that he could exhibit courage enough at ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... rush out. If they stood by their orders, then the King's life hung on the swiftness with which we could force the outer door; and I thanked God that not Rupert Hentzau watched, but Detchard. For though Detchard was a cool man, relentless, and no coward, he had neither the dash nor the recklessness of Rupert. Moreover, he, if any one of them, really loved Black Michael, and it might be that he would leave Bersonin to guard the King, and rush across the bridge to take part in the affray on the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... stared at the man in the car. He had seen that face before only for a few seconds beneath the electric light at Long Wharf on the waterfront. But he would have known it anywhere, for it had been indelibly impressed upon his memory. So Ben Stubbles was the contemptible coward who had pushed that woman into the water and left her to her fate! He had often longed to come face to face with that man, and he had planned what he would do when they met. But here he was before him, haughty and impudent, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and of her general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know that he was just a poor, miserable coward—he aroused no ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... powder entirely. The sight of this disgusted me so that I became furious, and in the measure that my anger rose my fear subsided and vanished. I railed at the poor fellow and abused and cursed him shamefully, threatening to kill him for being a coward and a fool. I made him draw the bullet and reload his musket ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and to do Their part in shaping issues to an end. Silence may guard the door of useless words, At dictate of Discretion; but to stand Without opinions in a world which needs Constructive thinking, is a coward's part. ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... him to this? If he had been wronged and injured, why could not he redress himself like other injured men? If revenge were necessary to him, why could he not avenge himself like a man, instead of leaguing with others to commit murder in the dark, like a coward and a felon? And then he thought of his position with Keegan and Ussher. There was something manly in his original disposition; he would have given anything for a stand up fight with the attorney with equal weapons; if it had been sure death to both, he would have fought ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... was by her royal and legitimate rival? Is Hero then lighting the lamp up, and getting ready the supper, whilst Leander is sitting comfortably with some other party, and never in the least thinking of taking to the water? Ever since that coward's blow was struck in Lady Maria's back by her own relative, surely kind hearts must pity her ladyship. I know she has faults—ay, and wears false hair and false never mind what. But a woman in distress, shall we not pity her—a lady of a certain age, are we going to laugh at her because of her ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... them with duplicity, and avows that he loathes their king like the gates of hell.[2] He next reverts to himself: The warrior has no thanks, he exclaims in the bitterness of disappointment—"The coward and the brave man are held in equal honour." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed destiny.—"After all, the idler, and the man of many achievements, each must die."[3] To-morrow, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... weak rule, the spirit of liberty had grown strong, and had become equal to a great contest. The contest was brought on by the policy of his successor. Charles bore no resemblance to his father. He was not a driveller, or a pedant, or a buffoon, or a coward. It would be absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man of exquisite tastes in the fine arts, a man of strict morals in private life. His talents for business were respectable; his demeanour was kingly. But he was false, imperious, obstinate, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it seemed as if the Stuart luck had turned. Charles might well conceive himself happy. Upon his sword sat laurel victory. Smooth success was strewn before his feet. The blundering and bewildered Cope actually allowed Charles and his army to get past him. Cope was neither a coward nor a traitor, but he was a terrible blunderer, and while the English general was marching upon Inverness Charles was triumphantly entering Perth. From Perth the young prince, with hopeless, helpless Cope still in his rear, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... that," the Squire blandly submitted. "For one thing, and the main thing, because he was a coward. He had plently of audacity but mighty little courage, and his courage gave out just when he needed it the most. And perhaps he hadn't perfect faith in himself; he was a fool, but he wasn't a crazy fool. Then again, my idea is that the scale was too small, or ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... on the most timid of men. Who told you that a soldier was never afraid, young sir? Whoever it was did not know what he was talking about. Yes, I have been afraid, deadly afraid, many times over, and no man dared to call Terence Digby a coward. To camp with a handful of men among the great lonely mountains, as your sister so aptly puts it, never knowing when or how the attack may fall—an attack of devils rather than men; to know that if you ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... armed at all pieces on a noble horse, with a great spear in his hand; and then he cried with a loud voice: Where art thou now, thou false traitor, Sir Launcelot? Why hidest thou thyself within holes and walls like a coward? Look out now, thou false traitor knight, and here I shall revenge upon thy body the death of my three brethren. All this language heard Sir Launcelot every deal; and his kin and his knights drew about him, and all they said at once to Sir Launcelot: ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... knights. One of his arms he carried in a sling, because of a recent injury. To render his condition yet more deplorable, his thigh had just been broken, as he rode up, by a kick from the unmanageable horse of his brother-in-law, La Rochefoucauld. The prince was no coward. Turning to his little company of followers, he exclaimed: "My friends, true noblesse of France, here is the opportunity we have long wished for in vain! Our God is the God of Battles. He loves to be ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... calmly considering what was best to be done. No coward fear troubled his mind, yet he clearly saw the various risks he must run. He thought of heaving his ballast overboard and trying to ride out the gale where he was, but then he must abandon all hope of reaching the harbour by his own unaided efforts. He might ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... Captain Blank, they whetted their swords together when peace was declared. Captain said, 'General, I'm not crazy and neither am I a coward. I looked up and seem like a man was comin' out the clouds, and so I'm goin' ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... that Stewart Morrison is no politician! But I noticed the queer flash in your eyes, Billy Tasper! Do you think he is a coward and has run away?" ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the colored man to the attack of the Indians had a good effect. It frightened the Alaskans, and, notwithstanding the demands of the rascally white man, they would not again advance. They wanted to consider matters first, and Callack was too big a coward to ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... when he looked upon the horrible deed of his hands, he then suddenly felt a loathsome, abominable, abject fear. The half-naked body of Verka was still quivering on the bed. The legs of Dilectorsky gave in from horror; but the reason of a hypocrite, coward and blackguard kept vigil: he did still have spirit sufficient to stretch away at his side the skin over his ribs, and to shoot through it. And when he was falling, frantically crying out from pain, from fright, and from the thunder of the shot, the last convulsion was running ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... those censors who make a coward of you can always find something to say in blame of every action, some taunt with which to reflect upon every word. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be hampered by the dread of depreciating remarks being made upon your conversation or ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... all as only a bad nightmare she's been through." His jaw clinched again so that the muscles stood out on his cheeks. "Do you know she won't say a word—not even to her mother—about who the villain is that betrayed her? I'd wring his coward neck off for him," he finished with a ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... every white man in Texas feels about it. And if such a wonder as a coward existed among them, he understands that he may as well die fighting Mexicans, as die of hunger or be scalped by Indians. A large proportion of the colonists depend on their rifles for their daily ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... gentleness and love. No rancor should remain, no vengeance should be sought; they who met in mortal conflict on the battle-field should be no longer enemies, but embrace as comrades, as friends, as brothers. None but a coward kicks a fallen foe; a brave people is generous, and the victors in the late war can afford to be generous generously. They fought for the Union, and the Union has no longer an enemy; their late enemies ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... he truly believe in God who is the truth? He who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and where does he expect to meet him? How far can he fly—can he fly and fly, till he flies into nothingness itself? No, the coward who would fly can nowhere find him. We must be brave enough to be able to say: We are reaching him here in this very spot, now at this very moment. We must be able to assure ourselves that as in our actions we are realising ourselves, so ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... right, sir; that is why I feared my weakness. I called you in order that the sight of you might keep alive my indignation and rekindle my wrath, for you have been a witness of my dishonor, sir. So, tell me that if I pardon I would be a coward, that I should merit my fate. Is it not ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... but a big bluff and a coward. You would have known that he was a coward, by the lies he had told and by the way he had attacked us. He wilted ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... to coward fools!—I want none of your priestcraft,' returned the nobleman. 'Do I not know the reason of all this affected love for justice and mercy. Your grand-daughter was to have married this midnight robber—they ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... he had taken for a coward, was calmly ready and was apparently quite willing to give his life—his life!—in order to save his enemy's soul. The robber had almost forgotten that he had a soul. His manhood was black and stained ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... because he is such a coward. Pray, he couldn't help it; he was too frightened. You were too frightened, weren't you, Robert? You are such a ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... commit weak and imbecile crimes, which mark the doer as a sneak and a coward. These men rob hen roosts, waylay helpless women and old men, steal clothing in hallways, and burn buildings. They are always cowardly about everything they do, and never have the pluck to steal chickens even until ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... scream and appear frightened than he yelled most loudly, and, running to me, caught my clothes, clinched his fists, and appeared really alarmed for two minutes. It was not affectation. Do you think this trait ominous of a coward? You know my abhorrence and contempt of those animals. Really I have been uneasy ever since it happened. You see I follow your injunction to the letter. How do you like this essay? Have ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... I've got a tidy bit of pluck in me when I'm stirred up—as much as most men have—but I can't stand rattlers. The idea of getting bitten sends a cold chill all down my back. I'd a deal sooner be hugged by a grizzly. Poison snakes and mad dogs make a regular coward ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... said Jane, "if you are not a coward, which I strongly suspect you are;" and when was a spirited boy of thirteen so urged on that had the prudence to know where to stop with propriety to himself. Marten, choking with rage, did advance to the door pointed out, and put his head inside, and ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... Master Jeremy Sparrow. "Go hang thyself, coward, or, if you choose, swim out to the Spaniard, and shift from thy wet doublet and hose into a sanbenito. Let the don come, shoot if he can, and land if he will! We'll singe his beard in Virginia as we ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... oddly beneath him. The Girl's sure instinct of danger, the piteousness of their case, were making a coward of him. He tore himself from her in a panic desire to go while he still had the manhood to play his part to the end; then suddenly broke down completely, and with his face buried in ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Had you not told me so at the outset," he continued, still speaking very quietly and deliberately and never raising his voice, "I would even now be standing over you, dog-whip in hand, to thrash you as a defaulting coward and a perjurer .... Bah!" he added with a return to his habitual bonhomie, "I would no doubt even have lost my temper with you. Which would have been purposeless and excessively bad ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... all safe; but that carpenter and justice of the peace, Mr., or as they call him, Squire, Doolittle, was prowling through the woods. I made sure of the door before I left the hut, and I think he is too great a coward ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... poisonous; therefore have I on me shield and byrnie. . . . Then did the famous warrior arise beside his shield, hard under helmet he bare the sword- shirt, under the cliffs of stone, he trusted in the strength of one man; nor is such an expedition for a coward." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... doing that?" There were dangerous lights in the dark eyes, lights that showed the brutality of the coward and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... and you toasted the Day, And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart and coward all, Little you reck of the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the "white arm's" fall, As ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Sperry into a state of positive alarm and kept his heart thumping the while, until a yawn of his host and a cheerful good-night relieved him of his fear. The doctor, like others of his ilk, was innately a coward. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... "It was a coward blow," returned Matcham. "Y' are but a lout and bully, Master Dick; ye but abuse advantages; let there come a stronger, we will see you truckle at his boot! Ye care not for vengeance, neither—for your father's death that goes unpaid, and his poor ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1792, the tragedy hastened to its denouement. On the night of the 9th, the tocsin was sounded, and the King and the Royal Family looked upon their fate as sealed. Notwithstanding the personal firmness of His Majesty, he was a coward for others. He dreaded the responsibility of ordering blood to be shed, even in defence of his nearest and dearest interests. Petion, however, had given the order to repel force by force to De Mandat, who was murdered ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre |
