Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fear
emotion induced by perceived
danger or threat
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The
one who fears is not made perfect in love. ~ First Epistle of John
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. ~ Marie Curie
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — always do what you are afraid to
do. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. ~ Baruch Spinoza
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with
tales, so is the other. ~ Francis Bacon
Fear ...can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy. If you're afraid you don’t commit yourself
to life completely; fear makes you always, always hold something back. ~ Phillip K. Dick
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face
my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the
inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ~ Frank
Herbert
Guilt is the result of fear... The way to remove fear and guilt is to... instill, acquire, build into yourself
honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit, and detachment. If done assiduously, correctly, these inevitably
build the detachment in which fear and guilt disappear. ~ Benjamin Creme
Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A·B·C·D·E·F·G·H·I·J·K·L·M·N·O·P·Q·R·S·T·U·V·W·X·Y·Z·
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations · Dictionary of Burning Words of
Brilliant Writers · See also · External links
Lucius Accius from Atreus, quoted in Seneca, Dialogues, Books III–V "De Ira", I, 20,
4.
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government (1776).
From remote times people have been accustomed to fear so-called death. They
were always intimidated by hell, and at the same time were not told about the
meaning of perfectment. One cannot ask people to be brave if they do not know
why they are on Earth, and where they will be directed when liberated. We entrust
Our co-workers to repeat as much as they can to people about the great Eternity
and the continuity of life... We know what devastation fear produces in the human
organism. Earthly physicians should distinguish a special kind of sickness caused
by fear... Let them understand how harmful is fear.
Agni Yoga, Supermundane, #44, (1938)
Fear, imposed from the top down- from shareholder to senior executive, senior
executive to executive, and so on down the chain right to the maximally squeezed
Manpower temp- is the dominant trope in the post-Reagan corporate culture. One
of the simplest ways to instill this fear is to make employees acutely aware that
their jobs are never safe.
Mark Ames, Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces
to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005), p. 103
Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action,
perseverance, and facing your fears.
Gillian Anderson, excerpt from the foreword in Girl Boss: Running the Show Like
the Big Chicks (http://www.gilliananderson.ws/transcripts/99_00/99girlboss.sht
ml/) (1999)
THE CORRUPT FEAR US · THE HONEST SUPPORT US · THE HEROIC JOIN US.
Anonymous motto, used in many placards, quoted at Anonymousuk.org (http://w
ww.anonymousuk.org/about.htm)
He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
Variant: I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes
his enemies.
They are the driven crowds that makes the army of the authoritarian overlord; they
are the stuffing of conservatism ... mediocrity is their god. They fear the stranger,
they fear the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die.
Donald Ewen Cameron as quoted by Harvey Weinstein in Father, Son and CIA pg.
101
Surrendering to fear and allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by peril isn't
something most of us can afford to do.
Ben Carson, Take The Risk (p. 63).
The point is, we can decry the dangers we face or ignore them or even allow
ourselves to be paralyzed by fear.
Ben Carson, Take The Risk (p. 236).
Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things underground, and much more in the
skies.
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605-1615), Part III, Book 6.
Myths are themselves a very important kind of proof. Myths preserve the history
of human thought - dreams, nightmares, and memories - as well as the history of
human deeds. And tangible proof aside, the legendary Amazons have been an
almost universal male nightmare. Men have believed in them. Psychologically
speaking, we don't fear something that doesn't exist, something that never
happened, something that never could happen - any more than people forbid or
regulate something that no one wants to do anyway.
Wonder Woman interview with Phyllis Chesler (1972)
So much of "normal, civilized" life is bull that you can't imagine. … What frightens
you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.
James Clavell, in Noble House (1981).
Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much.
And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the
same time—of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
Stephen Colbert Parade interview (http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/200
7/edition_09-23-2007/AStephen_Colbert) (23 September 2007)
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part VI, st. 10 (1798).
Who is all-powerful should fear everything.
Pierre Corneille, Cinna, Act IV, scene ii (1640).
The stress which exists in the world today is a result of competition and fear, the
fear of failure, disease, death, war, calamity, and economic disruption. The
pressure that these fears put on humanity inevitably results in psychosomatic
diseases. The cure lies in a re-establishing of equilibrium. When we establish
equilibrium in our lives through a restructuring of our political, economic and
social institutions, we will find that the health of humanity will improve
dramatically. We will not have to spend enormous sums of money maintaining
health. In fact, illness prevention will become the norm. Disease can generally be
prevented more easily than it can be cured.
Benjamin Creme in Maitreya's Mission Vol. III, Share International Foundation
(1997)
Guilt is the result of fear. The fundamental situation that creates fear also creates
guilt. The fear is that you have sinned. It is the result of wrong teaching by the
Christian groups for 2,000 years, which has instilled fear and guilt into 1,000
million Christian people. In every incarnation they meet the same thing – fear
instilling guilt and guilt instilling fear, and the terrible effect on the sense of self-
esteem that such teaching has. That, together with countless and age-old
superstitions that fill the minds of people of other religious traditions, makes fear
and guilt a powerful blockage on the way to awakening consciousness.
Benjamin Creme, Removal of Guilt, Share International magazine (https://www.sh
are-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2007/mar_07.htm) (March 2007)
The way to remove fear and guilt is to practise the three techniques that Maitreya
suggests. Instill, acquire, build into yourself honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit,
and detachment. If done assiduously, correctly, these inevitably build the
detachment in which fear and guilt disappear.
Benjamin Creme, Removal of Guilt, Share International magazine (https://www.sh
are-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2007/mar_07.htm) (March 2007)
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to
understand more, so that we may fear less.
Marie Curie, As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p.
v.
The fear of death is born with man, though this is the only thing he knows is
certain to happen to him. Attachment to material things makes man cling to life.
When you chant the Name of the Divine, when you are one with the divine, you
accept death. While you are attached to life and afraid of death, you die with that
fear and that weight clinging to you. If you have attained liberation you are free
from death (you accept inevitable). You die without fear and by remembering the
Name of God, your soul leaves the body free of that fear and attachment. If you
are reborn, your soul is still free from that fear. If you die in 'unity', you are free
from rebirth, unless you will it.
Haidakhan Babaji, The Teachings of Babaji, 1 December 1982.
"Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human
rights.
Dag Hammarskjöld, in a statement on the 180th anniversary of the Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson, as quoted in Quote
(20 May 1956).
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total
obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear
has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear (1965), pg. 8.
The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect.
Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.
Heinrich Himmler, as quoted in Visions of Reality: A Study of Abnormal Perception
and Behavior (2007) by Alberto Rivas, p. 162
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1954).
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to
frighten you.
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms Section 222
(1955).
[Y]ou get used to everything. No human force, not even fear, is stronger than habit.
Michel Houellebecq, "The New York Times - The Opinion Pages", commentary
about the November 2015 Paris attacks (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/o
pinion/how-frances-leaders-failed-its-people.html?_r=0) (21 November 2015)
Never fear your, enemies. A bold fight is the best: we should advance, and not
retrograde.
William Alanson Howard, Official Proceedings of the National Republican
Conventions of 1868, 1872, 1876, and 1880 (1903), p. 250.
Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each one of us. To build
for man a world without fear, we must be without fear. To build a world of justice,
we must be just. And how can we fight for liberty if we are not free in our own
minds? How can we ask others to sacrifice if we are not ready to do so?… Only in
true surrender to the interest of all can we reach that strength and independence,
that unity of purpose, that equity of judgment which are necessary if we are to
measure up to our duty to the future, as men of a generation to whom the chance
was given to build in time a world of peace.
Dag Hammarskjöld, in UN Press Release SG/360 (22 December 1953).
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create
the fact.
William James, in "Is Life Worth Living?" The Will to Believe and Other Essays in
Popular Philosophy (1897).
When the attendant of the man of the true God rose early and went outside, he
saw that an army with horses and war chariots was surrounding the city. At once
the attendant said to him: “Alas, my master! What are we to do?” But he said: “Do
not be afraid! For there are more who are with us than those who are with them.”
Jeremiah, 2 Kings 6ː15-16, New World Translation
Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
Book of Job, 41:33.
φόβος οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἀλλ’ ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον, ὅτι ὁ
φόβος κόλασιν ἔχει, ὁ δὲ φοβούμενος οὐ τετελείωται ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do
with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
John F. Kennedy, inaugural address (January 20, 1961); in The Public Papers of
the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 2.
We have genuflected before the God of Science only to find that it has given us
the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.
Martin Luther King, Strength to Love, 1963
I'd rather be dead than afraid.
Martin Luther King, as quoted in Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the
Assassination of Martin Luther King (https://books.google.com/books?id=IjYHl0Z
0eAoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:naHjXvcPfg8C&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUK
Ewi3x5KE8afYAhWqYd8KHcQzBrAQuwUIKzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false) , by
Gerald Posner
Still...let's talk about fear. We won't raise our voices and we won't scream; we'll talk
rationally, you and I. We'll talk about the way the good fabric of things sometimes
has a way of unraveling with shocking suddenness.
Stephen King, Night Shift, foreward (1978).
Fear is an emotion that makes us blind. How many things are we afraid of? We're
afraid to turn off the lights when our hands are wet. We're afraid to stick a knife
into the toaster to get the stuck English muffin without unpluggin it first. We're
afraid of what the doctor may tell us when the physical exam is over; when the
airplane suddenly takes a great unearthly lurch in midair. We're afraid that the oil
may run out, that the good air will run out, the good water, the good life. When the
daughter promised to be in by eleven and it's now quarter past twelve and sleet is
spatting against the window like dry sand, we sit and pretend to watch Johnny
Carson and look occasionally at the mute telephone and we feel the emotion that
makes us blind, the emotion that makes a stealthy ruin of the thinking process.
Stephen King, Night Shift, foreward (1978).
Fear makes us blind, and we touch each fear with all the avid curiousity of self-
interest, trying to make a whole out of a hundred parts, like the blind men with
their elephant. We sense the shape. Children grasp it easily, forget it, and relearn it
as adults. The shape is there, and most of us come to realize what it is sooner or
later: it is the shape of a body under a sheet. All our fears add up to one great fear,
all our fears are part of that great fear - an arm, a leg, a finger, an ear. We're afraid
of the body under the sheet. It's our body. And the great appeal of horror fiction
through the ages is that it serves as a rehearsal for our own deaths.
Stephen King, Night Shift, foreward.
Roger: But if there's something that frightens you, there are those that turn their
eyes away and there are those who try to see through the fear and conquer it.
Chiaki Konaka, The Big O, Under Ground Terror, (2001-04-05)
I'm either a mutant or a cripple, and I refuse to be a cripple. People pity cripples,
but they're afraid of mutants … Fear implies respect.
Dean Koontz, in One Door Away from Heaven (2001), Leilani Klonk, in Ch. 1, p. 4
After I have conferred my power on the warrior, when he goes to war he knows no
fear, he knows no faltering.
Lahar, in Debate between sheep and grain (mid to late 3rd millennium BCE) [1] (htt
p://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section5/tr532.htm)
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived
authentically and fully.
Frances Moore Lappé, O Magazine, (May 2004).
I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we
are.
Frances Moore Lappé, O Magazine, (May 2004).
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 (1927).
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak.
James Russell Lowell, Stanzas on Freedom, st. 4 (1843).
Fear. Fear attracts the fearful. The strong. The weak. The innocent. The corrupt.
Fear. Fear is my ally.
Darth Maul, promotional clip for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
(1999), written by George Lucas
Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate
leads to suffering.
Yoda in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)., written by George
Lucas
Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), Part I, Section
1 (1847).
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.
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Book II, l. 87.
Don't fear failure
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or
feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be
both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between
them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 8 (1513).
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat
life.
Yann Martel, Life of Pi, Chapter 56, p. 178 (2001).
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The
brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1995).
There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.
George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Jon (I)—Jon Snow
To use fear as the friend it is, we must retrain and reprogram ourselves… We must
persistently and convincingly tell ourselves that the fear is here--with its gift of
energy and heightened awareness--so we can do our best and learn the most in
the new situation.
Peter McWilliams, Life 101 (1995).
The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's
goodbye to the Bill of Rights.
H.L. Mencken, "A Time to be Wary" (1933), collected in A Carnival of Buncombe.
C'est de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.
The thing I fear most is fear.
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to
habit, and mean actions to fear.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, 74 (1878).
To show pity is felt as a sign of contempt because one has clearly ceased to be
an object of fear as soon as one is pitied.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and his Shadow (1880), the third part of
Human.
The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast are the
increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the
desires; so it is that punishment tames man, but does not make him "better."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, Second Essay, Section 15 (1887).
There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear
realized.
Conan O'Brien, Commencement Address at Dartmouth College, 2011
When children from other countries are telling us that we've made them fear the
sky, it might be time to ask some hard questions.
John Oliver (comedian) Last Week Tonight Ep. 19 Drones as quoted by [2] (http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/john-oliver-drones-last-week-tonight_n_589
9716.html)
Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it: He that fears otherwise, gives
advantage to the danger.
Francis Quarles, Enchiridion (1640).
In all your actions, words and thoughts, always regard yourself as standing before
Hashem, with His Shechinah above you, for His glory fills the whole world. Speak
with fear and awe, as a slave standing before his master. Act with restraint in front
of everyone. When someone calls you, don't answer loudly, but gently and softly,
as one who stands before his master.
Iggeres Ha Ramban, translation by [3] (http://www.pirchei.com/specials/ramban/ramban.
htm)
The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it.
John Randolph, speech in the House of Representatives (March 5, 1806).
Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.
Wilhelm Reich, in James Lee Christian Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of
Wondering, (2005), p. 556.
The only thing you fear is fearlessness.
The bigger the weapon, the greater the fear.
R.E.M., Hyena (1986).
Hatred does not exist as a basic psychological structure. It is, however, the result
of psychological manipulation of fear; and fear is not a basic psychological
structure.
Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions: Book 2, Session 75, Page 271.
L'amour de la justice n'est en la plupart des hommes que la crainte de souffrir
l'injustice.
The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.
In any case, we do not advance the human cause by refusing to consider ideas
that make us frightened.
Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain, (1979), Ballantine Books, Chapter 25, “The Amniotic
Universe” (p. 364)
The ego believes that to accomplish its goal is happiness. But it is given you to
know that God’s function is yours, and happiness cannot be found apart from your
joint will. Recognize only that the ego’s goal, which you have pursued quite
diligently, has merely brought you fear, and it becomes difficult to maintain that
fear is happiness. Upheld by fear, this is what the ego would have you believe. p.
10
Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles
The ego is afraid of the spirit's joy, because once you have experienced it you will
withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in
fear. Your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation,
and your ego rejoices when you witness to it. Leave it behind! Do not listen to it
and do not preserve it.
Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles Chapter 4: The Illusions of the Ego,
(1976)
The relationship of anger to attack is obvious, but the relationship of anger to fear
is not always so apparent. Anger always involves projection of separation, which
must ultimately be accepted as one's own responsibility, rather than being blamed
on others. Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been attacked,
that your attack is justified in return, and that you are in no way responsible for it.
Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles Chapter 4 The Illusions of the Ego,
(1976)
Although acquired capability may not be directly treatable, explaining to combat
veterans how their experiences may have contributed to invincibility or
fearlessness toward pain and death may help them maintain awareness of their
increased risk. It could be communicated to military personnel in general that they
should seek help immediately when they feel suicidal, not because they are weak,
but to the contrary, because they may lack fear. This explanation may also help
decrease cognitive barriers to seeking aid for mental health.
Edward A. Selby, Michael D. Anestis, Theodore W. Bender, Jessica D. Ribeiro,
Matthew K. Nock, M. David Rudd, Craig J. Bryan, Ingrid C. Lim, Monty T. Baker,
Peter M. Gutierrez, and Thomas E. Joiner, Jr.; “Overcoming the Fear of Lethal
Injury: Evaluating Suicidal Behavior in the Military through the Lens of the
Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm
c/articles/PMC2834834/) , Clin Psychol Rev, 2010 Apr; 30(3): 298–307.
I am human, sometimes I feel afraid and sometimes I am worried because even
though I am not afraid to spend a few years in jail, I understand that my mother
and friends will be worried. I always discuss this in my head. [...] I'm more scared
to live in this country, in this world, and do nothing: to spend life too afraid of
everything, too afraid to speak or go to certain places, to just be in a normal work
and don't create anything for the next generation. In my understanding, that is
much more scary than to go to jail.
Oksana Shachko, as quoted in Interview: Speaking of Femen-ism (https://luxtime
s.lu/archives/12783-interview-speaking-of-femen-ism) (3 August 2015),
Luxemburger Wort.
Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious
Is to be frightened out of fear.
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1606-1607), Act III, scene xi.
To fear the worst oft cures the worse.
William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (1609), Act III, scene ii.
It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
Kills me to look on't.
William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act II, scene 4, line 107.
Best safety lies in fear.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 3, line 43.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
When little fears grow great, great love grows there.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-1601), Act III, scene 2.
There is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act IV, scene 1, line 84.
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act 1, scene 1, line 68.
True nobility is exempt from fear.
William Shakespeare, Henry VI (1594), Act IV, scene i.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
William Shakespeare, Henry VI (1595), Act V, scene vi.
O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposèd numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.
William Shakespeare, Henry V (1600), Act IV, scene i.
Things done well,
And with a care, exempt themselves from fear;
Things done without example, in their issue
Are to be feared.
William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act I, scene 2, line 88.
It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.
William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act I, scene 3, line 54.
For I am sick and capable of fears,
Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears,
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears,
A woman, naturally born to fears.
William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 1, line 12.
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act I, scene 3, line 136.
Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act I, scene 3, line 137.
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 2, line 17.
Thou can'st not say I did it; never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 4, line 49.
You can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine is blanch'd with fear.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 4, line 114.
His flight was madness: when our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act IV, scene 2, line 3.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act III, scene i.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act V, scene 1,
line 21.
Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.
William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece (1594), line 230.
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe.
William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act III, scene 2, line 180.
Truly the souls of men are full of dread:
Ye cannot reason almost with a man
That looks not heavily and full of fear.
William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act II, scene 3,
line 39.
They spake not a word;
But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,
Gazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.
William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 7, line 24.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act IV, scene 3, line 15.
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which
had haunted my midnight pillow.
Mary Shelley, Introduction (http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/
intro.html) to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein.
Anything which is accomplished through making other people afraid is wrong.
Anything which deprives other people of their dignity is wrong.
Alexander D. Shimkin, American civil rights worker and journalist, from Alex
Shimkin oral history interview (cassette tape and transcript), 1965, Box 3, Folder
56, Archive no. 0050, Project South, SC 066, Stanford University Archives,
Stanford, Calif. (http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/xml/sc0066.xml)
He is fearful, like a man unacquainted with beer. (𒇽𒆕𒉡𒁶𒉎𒁯𒁯𒊏𒀀𒀭
translit. lu2 kak nu-zu-gin7 ni2 dar-dar-ra-/am3\)
Sumerian proverb
Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Solomon, Ecclesiastes, 12:13.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Part III, definition 13: explanation (1677).
The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.
Publilius Syrus, Maxims, No. 511 (100 BC).
You can't be scared. You do your thing, you hold your ground, you stand up tall,
and whatever happens, happens.
Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz, Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987) p. 89
The reason why you don't put your hand in the fire is not because of fear, it's
because you know that you'll get burned. You don't need fear to avoid
unnecessary danger - just a minimum of intelligence and common sense. For
such practical matters, it is useful to apply the lessons learned in the past. Now if
someone threatened you with fire or with physical violence, you might experience
something like fear. This is an instinctive shrinking back from danger, but not the
psychological condition of fear that we are talking about here. The psychological
condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It
comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia,
and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might
happen, not of something that is happening now. You are in the here and now,
while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are
identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the
Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion. You can always cope with
the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind
projection - you cannot cope with the future.
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997)
Anyone who is identified with their mind and, therefore, disconnected from their
true power, their deeper self rooted in Being, will have fear as their constant
companion. The number of people who have gone beyond mind is as yet
extremely small, so you can assume that virtually everyone you meet or know
lives in a state of fear. Only the intensity of it varies. It fluctuates between anxiety
and dread at one end of the scale and a vague unease and distant sense of threat
at the other. Most people become conscious of it only when it takes on one of its
more acute forms.
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997)
All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of
the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused
by too much future, and not enough presence.
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997)
You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with
something that is only a mind projection - you cannot cope with the future.
Moreover, as long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life, as I
pointed out earlier. Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense
mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as
constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly
very confident. Now remember that an emotion is the body's reaction to your
mind. What message is the body receiving continuously from the ego, the false,
mind-made self? Danger, I am under threat. And what is the emotion generated by
this continuous message? Fear, of course.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.
32
Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt,
and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the
ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of
death affects every aspect of your life. For example, even such a seemingly trivial
and "normal" thing as the compulsive need to be right in an argument and make
the other person wrong - defending the mental position with which you have
identified - is due to the fear of death. If you identify with a mental position, then if
you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with
annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.
32
Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an
unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in
which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear
preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your
attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear
and your thinking. Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the
Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.
If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can't
remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by
dropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable,
resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender.
Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person
has spiritual power.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.
56
Are you worried? Do you have many "what if" thoughts? You are identified with
your mind, which is projecting itself into an imaginary future situation and creating
fear. There is no way that you can cope with such a situation, because it doesn't
exist. It's a mental phantom. You can stop this health- and life-corroding insanity
simply by acknowledging the present moment. Become aware of your breathing.
Feel the air flowing in and out of your body. Feel your inner energy field. All that
you ever have to deal with, cope with, in real life - as opposed to imaginary mind
projections – is this moment. Ask yourself what "problem' you have right now, not
next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from now. What is wrong with this moment?
You can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future -nor do
you have to. The answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there
when you need it, not before, not after.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.
57
Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified
with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their
mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing
confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become
like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it. The collective
egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit
this planet.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.67
If it weren't for alcohol, tranquilizers, antidepressants, as well as the illegal drugs,
which are all consumed in vast quantities, the insanity of the human mind would
become even more glaringly obvious than it is already. I believe that, if deprived of
their drugs, a large part of the population would become a danger to themselves
and others. These drugs, of course, simply keep you stuck in dysfunction. Their
widespread use only delays the breakdown of the old [egoic] mind structures and
the emergence of higher consciousness. While individual users may get some
relief from the daily torture inflicted on them by their minds, they are prevented
from generating enough conscious presence to rise above thought and so find
true liberation.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.67
As you are run by the egoic mind, you are part of the collective insanity. Perhaps
you haven't looked very deeply into the human condition in its state of dominance
by the egoic mind. Open your eyes and see the fear, the despair, the greed, and the
violence that are all-pervasive. See the heinous cruelty and suffering on an
unimaginable scale that humans have inflicted and continue to inflict on each
other as well as on other life forms on the planet. You don't need to condemn.
Just observe. That is sin. That is insanity.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.71
Unhappiness is an ego created mental emotional disease that has reached
epidemic proportions. It is the inner equivalent of the environmental pollution of
our planet. Negative states, such as anger, anxiety, hatred, resentment, discontent,
envy, jealousy, and so on, are not recognized as negative but as totally justified
and are further misperceived not as self created but as caused by someone else
or some external factor. “I am holding you responsible for my pain.” This is what
by implication the ego is saying. p. 69
Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
What is a negative emotion? An emotion that is toxic to the body and interferes
with its balance and harmonious functioning. Fear, anxiety, anger, bearing a
grudge, sadness, hatred or intense dislike, jealousy, envy – all disrupt the energy
flow through the body, affect the heart, the immune system, digestion, production
of hormones, and so on. p. 84
Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)
Donald continues to exist in the dark space between the fear of indifference and
the fear of failure that led to his brother's destruction. It took forty-two years for
the destruction to be completed, but the foundations were laid early and played
out before Donald's eyes as he was experiencing his own trauma. The
combination of these two things- what he witnessed and what he experienced-
both isolated him and terrified him. The role that fear played in his childhood and
the role it plays now can't be overstated. And the fact that fear continues to be an
overriding emotion for him speaks to the hell that must have existed inside the
House six decades ago. Every time you hear Donald talking about how something
is the greatest, the best, the biggest, the most tremendous (the implication being
that he made them so), you have to remember that the man speaking is still, in
essential ways, the same little boy who is desperately worried that he, like his
older brother, is inadequate and that he, too, will be destroyed for his inadequacy.
At a very deep level, his bragging and false bravado are not directed at the
audience in front of him but at his audience of one: his long-dead father.
Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's
Most Dangerous Man (2020), p. 202
Donald's initial response to COVID-19 underscores the need to minimize negativity
at all costs. Fear- the equivalent of weakness in our family- is as unacceptable to
him now as it was when he was three years old. When Donald is in the most
trouble, superlatives are no longer enough; both the situation and his reactions to
it must be unique, even if absurd or nonsensical. On his watch, no hurricane has
ever been as wet as Hurricane Maria. "Nobody could have predicted" a pandemic
that his own Department of Health and Human Services was running simulations
for just a few months before COVID-19 struck in Washington state. Why does he
do this? Fear. Donald didn't drag his feet in December 2019, in January, in
February, in March because of his narcissism; he did it because of his fear of
appearing weak or failing to project the message that everything was "great,"
"beautiful," and "perfect." The irony is that his failure to face the truth has inevitably
led to massive failure anyway. In this case, the lives of potentially hundreds of
thousands of people will be lost and the economy of the richest country in history
may well be destroyed. Donald will acknowledge none of this, moving the
goalposts to hide the evidence and convincing himself in the process that he's
done a better job than anybody else could have if only a few hundred thousand die
instead of 2 million.
Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's
Most Dangerous Man (2020), p. 207-208
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear. Except a
creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a
loose application of the word. Consider the flea! — incomparably the bravest of all
the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, Chapter 12 (1894).
Take the so-called politics of fear — the constant reference to risks, from hoodies
on the street corner to international terrorism. Whatever the truth of these risks
and the best ways of dealing with them, the politics of fear plays on an
assumption that people cannot bear the uncertainties associated with them.
Politics then becomes a question of who can better deliver an illusion of control.
Ex-vicar Mark Vernon; quoted in "God. Who knows?" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/u
k_news/magazine/6199716.stm) . BBC News. 4 December 2006. Retrieved on
2006-12-10.
Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.
Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.
On my way from school to home I heard a man saying “I will kill you.” I hastened
my pace and after a while I looked back if the man was still coming behind me.
But to my utter relief he was talking on his mobile and must have been threatening
someone else over the phone.
Malala Yousafzai's diary, 2009 "I am afraid", Saturday 3 January 2009; Cited in:
Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.
stm) at news.bbc.co.uk. 19 January 2009
Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, IV, 10, 10.
Ubi intravit animos pavor, id solum metuunt, quod primum formidare cœperunt.
When fear has seized upon the mind, man fears that only which he first began to
fear.
Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, IV, 16, 17.
Quem neque gloria neque pericula excitant, nequidquam hortere; timor animi
auribus officit.
The man who is roused neither by glory nor by danger it is in vain to exhort; terror
closes the ears of the mind.
See also
Awakening
Consciousness
Courage
Ego
Fear of God
Healing
Love
Now
Meditation
Mental health
Mind
Optimism
Prayer
External links
Overcome Fear and Judgement of Fear (https://motivationandhappiness.com/20
19/05/24/overcome-the-fear-of-being-judged-fear-motivation/)
Emotions
Adoration ~ Affection ~ Agony ~ Amusement ~ Anger ~ Anguish ~ Anxiety ~ Apathy ~ Awe ~ Boredom ~
Calmness ~ Cheerfulness ~ Compassion ~ Contempt ~ Contentment ~ Depression ~ Desire ~
Disappointment ~ Discontent ~ Disgust ~ Ecstasy ~ Embarrassment ~ Empathy ~ Enthusiasm ~ Envy ~
Euphoria ~ Fear ~ Gratitude ~ Grief ~ Guilt ~ Happiness ~ Hatred ~ Hope ~ Hostility ~ Humiliation ~
Impatience ~ Indignation ~ Insecurity ~ Jealousy ~ Joy ~ Loneliness ~ Loss ~ Love ~ Lust ~ Malice ~
Melancholy ~ Nostalgia ~ Panic ~ Passion ~ Pity ~ Pride ~ Rage ~ Regret ~ Remorse ~ Resentment ~
Sadness ~ Shame ~ Sorrow ~ Suffering ~ Surprise ~ Sympathy ~ Wonder ~ Worry
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?
title=Fear&oldid=2960986"