... the courage of one's opinions is always a form of calculating cowardice in the eyes of the 'other side'...

Marcel Proust
About This Quote

This quote is an elegant summation of the arguments against courage and for cowardice. When one has a strong opinion of something or someone, it is more often than not the case that the opinion of that person or thing is not accepted by everyone. In fact, people who have strong feelings about something are often more likely to be attacked and insulted by those of differing opinions. In this situation, the person who has a strong opinion has indeed displayed a form of cowardice in the eyes of those with differing opinions. It is so much easier to show cowardice in a world where there is more than one way to be brave, more than one way to be strong, more than one way to be smart, more than one way to think.

Source: Swann's Way

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. - Lao Tzu
  2. Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time. - Maya Angelou
  3. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of... - Lauren Oliver
  4. ...Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make love known? - William Shakespeare
  5. We, unaccustomed to courageexiles from delightlive coiled in shells of lonelinessuntil love leaves its high holy templeand comes into our sightto liberate us into life. Love arrivesand in its train come ecstasiesold memories of pleasureancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes... - Maya Angelou
More Quotes By Marcel Proust
  1. Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.
  2. Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days...
  3. My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.
  4. People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura oflife which bears no relation to true immortality but through which theycontinue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. Itis as though they were...
  5. One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.
Related Topics