We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider others.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet

Essay (1878-04), “Æs Triplex,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 37
    (Source)

Collected in Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, ch. 5 (1881).