"Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information"
About this Quote
Ustinov flips the usual moral ranking of bravery and fear with an actor’s instinct for revealing the ugly mechanics under a heroic pose. “Courage” here isn’t a shining virtue; it’s frequently just someone charging ahead because they don’t fully understand the risks. That’s a brutally practical observation from a performer who spent a career watching how confidence can be staged and sold. In that sense, courage becomes less about character than about information asymmetry: the person who knows less can appear nobler simply because they’re unburdened by reality.
The sting of the line is the second half. Cowardice, typically framed as a failure of nerve, gets recast as a rational response to “good information.” Ustinov isn’t exactly praising cowardice, but he’s rescuing it from pure moral condemnation. If you’ve seen enough wars, PR campaigns, and public meltdowns, you know that hesitation can be intelligence wearing an unflattering costume.
The subtext is a critique of how societies reward the optics of fearlessness while penalizing the quieter virtue of caution. It also hints at the class and institutional dynamics behind “heroism”: the people pushed to be brave are often the ones kept least informed. Ustinov’s wit works because it forces a discomforting question: if bravery depends on ignorance, how often are our heroes simply the least briefed person in the room?
The sting of the line is the second half. Cowardice, typically framed as a failure of nerve, gets recast as a rational response to “good information.” Ustinov isn’t exactly praising cowardice, but he’s rescuing it from pure moral condemnation. If you’ve seen enough wars, PR campaigns, and public meltdowns, you know that hesitation can be intelligence wearing an unflattering costume.
The subtext is a critique of how societies reward the optics of fearlessness while penalizing the quieter virtue of caution. It also hints at the class and institutional dynamics behind “heroism”: the people pushed to be brave are often the ones kept least informed. Ustinov’s wit works because it forces a discomforting question: if bravery depends on ignorance, how often are our heroes simply the least briefed person in the room?
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by Peter
Add to List
