I think that cowardice and complicity often go hand in hand. If we accept injustice toward others and bullying of others in silence and do nothing to counter these behaviors, we are complicit in the behaviors via inaction. It's easy to look the other way, to excuse ourselves from taking a stand, out of cowardice and fear. Fear of retaliation, fear of getting involved, fear of having to take a stand, fear of sticking our heads 'above the radar', fear of stepping outside of our comfort zone and giving up a comfortable life generally. Complicity is fueled by moral laziness, as is cowardice. If we don't take a stand against injustice, we are complicit in that injustice and also cowardly for not taking a stand. But it's not easy to stand up for what is right and no one ever said it would be. There is a lot to lose. But living with yourself as the years go by becomes harder and harder, when you are faced with your moral laziness. I often think of the apostles who followed Jesus; they acted cowardly when he needed them to be there for him. We are more often like them than unlike them.
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The seven deadly sins should be updated. We should add an eighth sin: Cowardice.
--Gad Saad
Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk.--Margaret Chase Smith
Alas, nothing reveals man the way war does. Nothing so accentuates in him the beauty and ugliness, the intelligence and foolishness, the brutishness and humanity, the courage and cowardice, the enigma. --Oriana Fallaci
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.--Martin Luther King, Jr.
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.--Rollo May
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.--Mahatma Gandhi
To be silent is to be complicit.--Richard Edelman
If you're governor of a state, and you have nothing to say when the president attacks the people that you represent, you are complicit.--J. B. Pritzker
I learned about injustice young. That I had a duty to not be complicit, to not turn the other way.--Ashley Biden
While admiring the pleasing evidence of wealth, we become complicit in - or, at the very least, recognize the extent to which we, too, are beneficiaries of - an economic system we routinely deplore.--Geoff Dyer
