Quote#Courage
The great malady of public life is cowardice. Most men are not…
Quote byWoodrow Wilson · 1856–1924
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: 1920s and later, As quoted in American Chronicle (1945) by Ray Stannard Baker, quoted on unnumbered page opposite p. 1.
English (original)
The great malady of public life is cowardice. Most men are not untrue, but they are afraid. Most of the errors of public life, if my observation is to be trusted, come not because men are morally bad, but because they are afraid of somebody. God knows why they should be: it is generally shadows they are afraid of.
— Woodrow Wilson
More from Woodrow Wilson
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them …
In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme …
I yield to no one precedence in love for the South. But because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy.
The Senate of the United States has been both extravagantly praised and unreasonably disparaged, according to the predisposition and temper of its various critics... The truth is, in this case as in so many others, something quite …
Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.
It is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one.