quotations about fear
Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true. This terror therefore and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Fear, the strength of earth's religions, gripping every living soul,
Was a monstrous human error for the making of men whole.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
Fear is a distorting mirror in which anything can appear as a caricature of itself, stretched to terrible proportions; once inflamed, the imagination pursues the craziest and most unlikely possibilities. What is most absurd suddenly seems the most probable.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
In my opinion the hectic and almost frantic pace of modern living is a clear sign of the fear we have of being and of life. And as long as this fear exists in a person's unconscious, he will run faster and do more so as not to feel his fear.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
Fear of Life
Fear secretes acids.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The good news is that fear is typically the province of the old. And hope is the province of the young.
BARACK OBAMA
Newsweek, April 29, 2019
It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
When a man is afraid and accedes to fear, he will always find arguments to justify his own surrender.
NATAN SHARANSKY
Fear No Evil
Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
BIBLE
Ecclesiastes 12:13
There is a time when fear is good and ought to remain seated as a guardian of the heart.
AESCHYLUS
The Eumenides
We must control fear or it will control us.
WALTER MATTHEWS
Human Life from Many Angles
The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out ... and do it.
SUSAN J. JEFFERS
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid.
L. FRANK BAUM
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unpopular Essays
The fear we throw about danger is always as disproportionate as a paternal shirt on an infant.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Of all the mental and physical polluters of life, nothing exercises such a poisonous effect as fear.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
Fears themselves don't have to change at all. Fear is not the problem. It is our relationship to the fear that determines the choices we make. By changing our relationship to fear, we reduce its credibility, robbing it of its power to stop us.
THOM RUTLEDGE
Embracing Fear
Always use the proper names for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
Freedom from Fear