Boasting of glory does not make glory.
Patriotism is seen not only the last refuge of the scoundrel bus as the first bolt-hole of the hypocrite.
… patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
The weak can be terrible because they try furiously to appear strong.
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk.
Fake confidence on the outside often trumps truthful turmoil on the inside.
The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards.
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
The Little Man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it. He covers up his smallness and narrowness with illusions of strength and greatness...
The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool.
I'm not 21 and trying to prove something with my words.
Everyone's more vulnerable than they seem, and I think men are more vulnerable. Once you get close to a man, the whole thing's a facade anyway. I think manhood is fragile.
Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.
There are pretenders to piety as well as to courage.
I've grown tired of people impersonating world-weary cynics by intoning the old saying 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' as if it were a new-minted witticism.
A man who claims to be fearless is an idiot or a liar.
We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
Macho does not prove mucho.
I'm not shy in the spotlight. I might seem austere and even arrogant, but far from it, I'm actually shy.
The coward only threatens when he is safe.
Pretentiousness was probably my substitute for actual confidence.
I think I've always acted confident, even at times I haven't been confident.
My bark is far, far worse than my bite.
If people have to tell you how successful they are, they really aren't that successful.
I put up a front to make people think I had all of this confidence in myself, which I didn't.
