John Simon Quotes

I think on some level, that's a fear that exists in everybody, that if we're tested, we won't make the courageous choice. We won't make the decision that would make us heroic. We make the decision that would reveal us to be all too human.

George Eliot tenderly carried in her heart the burdens of our race. She looked through pity's tears upon the faults and frailties of mankind.

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

For all men would be cowards if they durst.

Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.

I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.

No one is above temptation. No one is above life in general.

I must not permit the evil capabilities of human nature to sour my faith in the tremendous good that is possible despite the frailty of that nature.

Cowardice is no virtue.

...Really, there is no greater sin than cowardice; cowards are never saved - that is sure. I can stand everything else but not that.

Weakness arouses evil. The American people know this.

Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.

Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?

I think that a good person can sometimes do wrong out of ignorance or weakness or wrong thinking, but when hard times come, the goodness wins out after all. And a bad person can often seem good and trustworthy for a long time, but when hard times come, the evil in him gets revealed.

So it is the fear, weakness, selfishness, and cowardice of onlookers that permit evil behavior to persist.

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.

Cowardice is the greatest sin.

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.

Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

Integrity and firmness is all I can promise; these, be the voyage long or short, never shall forsake me though I be deserted by all men. For of the consolations which are to be derived from these (under any circumstances) the world cannot deprive me.

Cowards are nice, they're interesting, they're gentle, they wouldn't think of shooting down people in a parade from a tower. They want to live, so they can see their kids. They're very brave.

There seldom is enmity between seasoned old politicians, who know as much as men can of human weakness and human strength.

Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave.