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It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.

— Michel de Montaigne Essais (1571)

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More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.

Essais (1571)

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

Essais (1571)

What of a truth that is bounded by these mountains and is falsehood to the world that lives beyond?

Essais (1571)

God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause.

Essais (1571)

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

Essais (1571)

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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: Michel de Montaigne (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.