Skip to content

A coward boasting of his courage may deceive strangers, but he is a laughing-stock to those who know him.

Virtutis expers verbis jactans gloriam
Ignotos fallit, notis est derisui.

Another quote →

Topics

Courage

More quotes by Phaedrus

You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched.

Endure this evil lest a worse come upon you.

By this story [The Fox and the Raven] it is shown how much ingenuity avails, and how wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

He carried and nourished in his breast a snake, tender-hearted against his own interest.

O that such beauty should be so devoid of understanding!

Fables, I, 7, 2. Reported in Hoyt's (1922)

All Phaedrus quotes →

You may also like

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

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1599)

All doubt is cowardice — all trust is brave.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Courage is never born with a person; time and circumstances inject it into a person and bring it forth from within.

Sanu Sharma

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell Education and the Social Order (1932)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Phaedrus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.