Leadership Quote by Henry Laurens

Bravery, Laurens admits, can be an administrative error. What reads like valor is really a misfiled memo: he stayed put because he didn’t believe the “current report.” The line deflates the heroic pose that Revolutionary rhetoric often demanded. Instead of claiming steadiness under fire, he confesses a perfectly human calculation: if the threat had felt real, he would have run “as fast as any man.” It’s candor with a purpose, a politician’s strategic humility meant to sound trustworthy rather than theatrical.

The sting is saved for the punchline: “no man can possibly have a greater reluctance to an intimacy with Sir William Howe than my Self.” “Intimacy” is doing heavy lifting here. Laurens isn’t talking about social closeness; he’s using a prim word to mock the prospect of forced “familiarity” with the British commander - capture, interrogation, dependence, perhaps even the moral contamination of negotiating from weakness. The politeness sharpens the contempt. It’s an eighteenth-century way of saying: I’d rather die than be in your company on your terms.

Context matters: Laurens was a South Carolina power broker and later president of the Continental Congress, writing in a world where reputation was currency and defeat could look like treason. By reframing courage as circumstance and revulsion as principle, he protects himself on both fronts. If he misjudged danger, it’s an honest mistake; if he stands firm, it’s not macho posturing but political conviction. The sentence performs what the Revolution required from leaders: seeming unromantic about glory while still signaling total refusal of British authority.