quotations about fear
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.
SENECA
Epistles
Something indefinite is always worse than something definite, a strong fear that doesn't last very long is easier than one that's nebulous but doesn't go away.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
Fear hath a numerous progeny.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The boundaries between fear and other emotions are not clear-cut. How does fear differ from dread, consternation or surprise? Anger, disgust, hatred and horror all contain elements of fear. Jealousy may be understood as fear of losing one's partner; guilt may be fear of God's punishment; shame may be fear of humiliation. I history of fear would be rendered meaningless if all negative emotional states were classified as 'really' being fear states.
JOANNA BOURKE
Fear: A Cultural History
If there is one thing which I would banish from the earth it is fear.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, Feb. 1930
Fear was there, too, cold and hot at the same time, making everything in the plain room sharper, with fewer shadows.
ALLISON BRENNAN
Fear No Evil
When we fear things I think that we wish for them ... every fear hides a wish.
DAVID MAMET
Edmond
Fear, true fear, is a savage frenzy. Of all the insanities of which we are capable, it is surely the cruelest. There is naught to equal its drive, and naught can survive its thrust.
GEORGES BERNANOS
A Diary of My Times
Fear invites aggression--do not show it to a predator.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Butlerian Jihad
You are frightened of everything. You call it caution. You call it common sense. You call it practicality. You call it playing the odds, but that's only because you're afraid to call it by its real name, and its real name is fear.
MICK FARREN
Darklost
Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I know beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.
JOHN STEINBECK
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Face your fears or they will climb over your back.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
Fear is a fantastic marketing tool.
DANIEL GARDNER
The Science of Fear
Fear is contagious. You can catch it.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Graveyard Book
Fear is prophetical of evil.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Not to fear where there is occasion, is as great a weakness as to fear unduly, without reason.... Fear is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance upon the approach of danger.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
You see something scary, you should stand up and step toward it, not away from it. Instinctively, reflexively, in a raging fury.
LEE CHILD
Echo Burning
To him who is in fear everything rustles.
SOPHOCLES
Acrisius [fragment]
Fear flies through fancy's door.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
All is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear.
ALFRED
LORD TENNYSON, In Memoriam