“Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battlefield when it's be brave or else be killed.”
Source: Gone with the Wind
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Margaret Mitchell 98
American author and journalist 1900–1949Related quotes
“(Alternate version.) A brave man will kill you with a sword, a coward with a kiss.”
Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Gonna Change My Way of Thinking
“Churchill, 9 Sept 1917]]We want brave men! ANY BLOODY FOOL CAN OBEY ORDERS!”
Letter to Admiral Beatty, dated 3 February 1915.
Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. Vol 3 (1959), p. 152.
Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.
“Not only the brave get killed, but the brave have a better chance of it.”
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XIV
“A brave nation fights because it must; a cowardly nation fights because it can.”
“Betraying Brave Boys,” http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31722 WorldNetDaily.com, March 26, 2003.
2000s
Source: "Why Are They Laughing In Those Cages?", in Travels in Hyperreality : Essays (1986), Ch. III : The Gods of the Underworld, p. 122
Context: The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed.
Context: The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed. He doesn't boast of his own death or of others'. But he does not repent. He suffers and keeps his mouth shut; if anything, others then exploit him, making him a myth, while he, the man worthy of esteem, was only a poor creature who reacted with dignity and courage in an event bigger than he was.
“One part brave, three parts fool!”
Variant: Thats the spirit-one part brave, three parts fool.
Source: Eragon