John Wilmot Quotes
For all men would be cowards if they durst.
Wilmot, John. "A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind." The Complete Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, edited by David M. Vieth, Yale University Press, 1968, p. 100.
Sometimes paraphrased as “the coward dies a thousand deaths, but the brave man dies but once.”
Describing the Cuban air force attack on, and destruction of, unarmed civilian protest planes:
John Wilmot was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester embodied this new era, and he became as well known for his rakish lifestyle as his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died as a result of venereal disease at the age of 33.
