A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.

The saying draws a three-part psychological timeline around fear: anticipation, the crisis itself, and retrospective narration. “Timid” fear lives in imagination, magnifying what has not yet happened; “cowardice” is the failure of nerve when action is required; and “courage afterward” points to a common human self-deception—recasting one’s past conduct as braver than it was once the danger has passed. The epigram thus critiques performative bravery and the way memory and pride can launder fear into a story of fortitude. It also implies that genuine courage is measured in the moment of peril, not in anxious forethought or in later self-congratulation.