A Symbol of Cowardice
The white feather as a symbol of cowardice supposedly comes from cockfighting and the belief that a cockerel sporting a white feather in its tail is likely to be a poor fighter. Pure-breed gamecocks do not show white feathers, so its presence indicates that the cockerel is an inferior cross-breed.
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Famous quotes containing the words symbol and/or cowardice:
“Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I ... hate with a murderous hatred those men who, having lived their youth, would send into war other youth, not lived, unfulfilled, to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)