Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.
Interpretation
Bullies often act out of fear and insecurity, masking their true nature.
This quote by Anna Julia Cooper highlights that bullies, beneath their aggressive exterior, often possess cowardice at their core. This suggests that their actions stem from a place of fear and insecurity, making them predators who seek out those they perceive as weaker to exert control and dominance.
In practice
During a presentation about mental health, one might cite this quote to discuss the psychology behind bullying behavior.
It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.
I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history and there her destiny is evolving.
Let woman's claim be as broad in the concrete as the abstract. We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritism, whether of sex, race, country, or condition. If one link of the chain is broken, the chain is broken.
I constantly felt (as I suppose many an ambitious girl has felt) a thumping from within unanswered by any beckoning from without.
The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.
Peace produced by suppression is neither natural nor desirable.
I'm always fearful. β¦ Fear generates in you a huge energy. You can use it. When I feel that mounting fear, I think, 'Oh, yes, there it is!' It's like petrol.
The secret principle of martial arts is not vanquishing the attacker, but resolving to avoid an encounter before its occurrence. To become an object of an attack is an indication that there was an opening in one's guard, and the important thing is to be on guard at all times.
Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.
We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future.
I do not murmur, even if my heart break.
Covering the civil-rights movement was a mind- and eye-opener for me. Houston was a segregated society, as was Texas as a whole - some of it by law, a lot of it by fear and tradition. But there was no violence where I lived, and if there was hate, it was either concealed from me or I just didn't recognize it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.