quotations about fear
All is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear.
ALFRED
LORD TENNYSON, In Memoriam
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
Sometimes fear is wholesome and rational; it is well to swing fear as a mighty battle-axe over men's heads when no other motive will move them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Fear will bind you closer than love, or hate, and it works a hell of a lot quicker.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Guilty Pleasures
The strongest human emotion is fear. It's the essence of any good thriller that, for a little while, you believe in the boogeyman.
JOHN CARPENTER
Time, Nov. 16, 1987
To him who is in fear everything rustles.
SOPHOCLES
Acrisius [fragment]
Man now needs for his salvation only one thing: to open his heart to joy, and leave fear to gibber through the glimmering darkness of a forgotten past.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
New Hopes for a Changing World
Fear flies through fancy's door.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Though it may arrive with shocking suddenness, horror devours its prey slowly. Through hours of days and years, it spreads its sullen darkness into every corner of the being it has conquered.
JOSEPHINE HART
Damage
You can't stop being afraid just by pretending everything that scares you isn't there.
MICHAEL MARSHALL
The Upright Man
The understanding of fear cures fear.
ROBERT ANTHONY
Beyond Positive Thinking
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unpopular Essays
Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface. Change brought fear, and fear brought destruction.
BERNARD BECKETT
Genesis
Fears work into the mind like maggots in a corpse; they fester and boil and work to no good.
DAVID C. SMITH & RICHARD L. TIERNEY
The Ring of Ikribu
Fear is a message--sometimes helpful, sometimes not--but often conveying critical information about our beliefs, our needs, and our relationship to the world around us.
HARRIET LERNER
Fear and Other Uninvited Guests
Throughout evolutionary history, anxiety and fear have helped every species to be wary and to survive. Fear can signal us to act, or, alternatively, to resist the impulse to act. It can help us to make wise, self-protective choices in and out of relationships where we might otherwise sail mindlessly along, ignoring signs of trouble.
HARRIET LERNER
Fear and Other Uninvited Guests
Fear of change is a part of the state of fear man has ever lived in but out of which he has begun to escape. Civilization might be defined indeed as the steps in his escape.
ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS
Fear and Conventionality
I marvel now that it was not obvious how inextricable suffering and fear are. It was not until fear left that I noticed, slowly, how it seemed to have taken suffering with it. It took a while to figure out that (for me, anyhow) suffering is mostly caused by fear--not by the circumstances themselves, but by my response to them.
JAN FRAZIER
When Fear Falls Away
Once bitten by a snake, one is afraid at the sight of a mere rope.
CHINESE PROVERB
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H.P. LOVECRAFT
Supernatural Horror in Literature