Chris Cleave Quotes

How many times did someone have to run in front of a machine gun before it became an act of cowardice?

They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

A wicked Hero will turn his back to an innocent coward.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

At the bottom of not a little of the bravery that appears in the world, there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they have not the courage to face public opinion.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.

There are times when it is more courageous to be cowardly.

Some people are cowards... I think by and large a third of people are villains, a third are cowards, and a third are heroes. Now, a villain and a coward can choose to be a hero, but they've got to make that choice.

For all men would be cowards if they durst.

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.

There's nothing but brutality and bravery or cowardice that comes out of war. That's pretty much it.

Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess. Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.

Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

There's no shame in fear. But understand this - the coward is ruled by fear, while the hero rides it like a wild stallion.

I'm not a pacifist. I'm not that brave.

The hero is valorous because he stands up to every threat directed against his values. Heroism requires value conflict.

Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.

To love pleasure takes little. To love truly takes a hero who can manage his own fear.

When you banish the dragons you banish the heroes.

A hero can be afraid, but a hero never runs away.

He who says, "I know no fear," is no hero. No man knows courage unless he does know fear, and has that in him which is superior to fear, and conquers it.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

A hero is someone who simply got too frightened to use his good sense and run away, then somehow lived through it all.