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Fear
emotion induced by perceived
danger or threat

Fear is a basic emotional sensation and response system ("feeling") initiated by


an aversion to some perceived risk 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

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free. ~ Aristotle

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

Fear is the foundation of most governments. ~ John Adams

Let them hate, so long as they fear. ~ Lucius Accius


Everybody's afraid, but to do your job in combat you have to put your fear down. If you're not afraid in

combat, you're either a fool or a liar. ~ George S. Patton IV

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

Fear is the great destroyer. ~ Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard

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
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Oderint dum metuant.


Let them hate, so long as they fear.

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.

Aristotle, Quoted in Florilegium by Joannes Stobaeus

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.


Francis Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, Fortitudo (1623).
The fear that I heard in my father’s voice, for example, when he realized that I
really believed I could do anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of
proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when one of us was ill or had fallen
down the stairs or strayed too far from the house. It was another fear, a fear that
the child, in challenging the white world’s assumptions, was putting himself in the
path of destruction.
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963), p. 26
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, Apothegms, Of Death (1624).
Fear is the product of ignorance, and in its initial stages it is not the product of
wrong thinking. It is basically instinctual, and is found dominating in the non-
mental animal kingdom, as well as in the human kingdom... But in the human, its
power is increased potently through the powers of the mind, and through memory
of past pain and grievance, and through anticipation of those we foresee, the
power of fear is enormously aggravated by the thoughtform we ourselves have
built of our own individual fears and phobias. This thoughtform grows in power as
we pay attention to it, for "energy follows thought", till we become dominated by it.
Alice Bailey, The Way of the Disciple [1934]. ISBN 978-0-85330-123-3.
Far too many people have been swept into the post-9/11 system of fear that is the
basis of all public policy these days.
Bob Barr, ACLU boardmember and former Congressman from Georgia; quoted in
"Feds may soon check all workers' IDs" (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing
ton/2006-03-01-immigration-IDs_x.htm) , USA Today, 2 March 2006.
Fear is real and there is nothing you can do about it except to keep functioning,
keep your hands and legs and body moving, your mind focused on the task at
hand.
Alvah Bessie, Men in Battle: A Story of Americans in Spain (1939), p. 241
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and
assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to
free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
Louis Brandeis, concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 376 (1927).
All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain... we can be like they are
Come on baby... don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand... don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly... don't fear the reaper
Baby I'm your man...
Blue Oyster Cult (Don't Fear) The Reaper| written by Buck Dharma
The greatest weakness of all weaknesses is to fear too much to appear weak.
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Politique Tirée de l'Écriture Sainte (Politics Drawn from
the Very Words of Holy Scripture) (1679 - published 1709).
I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.
Giannina Braschi, "United States of Banana" (2011) Part I, p.14
I saw the white of fear in America’s eyes. We don’t fear the way we should fear.
Our sense of danger should be at the height of our abuse.
Giannina Braschi, "United States of Banana" (2001) Part I, p. 23
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning
as fear.
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime
and Beautiful (1756).
The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
Edmund Burke, Second Speech on Conciliation with America. The Thirteen
Resolutions (March 22, 1775).
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
Edmund Burke, speech on the petition of the Unitarians, House of Commons (May
11, 1792); in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1899), vol. 7, p. 50.
There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result
not of caution but of fear.
Attributed to Edmund Burke; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A
Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
The most drastic and usually the most effective remedy for fear is direct action.
William H. Burnham, The Normal Mind (http://archive.org/details/normalmind032
389mbp) (1924), p. 424.
The fear of some divine and supreme powers keeps men in obedience.
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section 4, member 1, subsec.
2 (1621-1651).

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.

Où serait le mérite, si les héros n'avaient jamais peur?


Where would be the merit if heroes were never afraid?

Alphonse Daudet, Tartarin de Tarascon (1872); French cited from Tartarin de


Tarascon (Paris: E. Flammarion, 1887), p. 204; translation from the Webster's
French Thesaurus edition (San Diego: Icon, 2008), p. 80.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
David, Psalms, 23:4.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength
of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
David, Psalms, 27:1.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we
not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea.
David, Psalms, 46:1-2.
As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear
him.
David, Psalms, 103:11.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
David, Psalms, 111:10.
Be not afraid of sudden fear.
David, Book of Proverbs, 3:25.
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, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, (1974), p. 171
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe, Act IV, scene i (1676).
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment Part I, Ch. 1 (1866).

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.


The soul that knows it not, know no release
From little things;
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
Amelia Earhart, Courage (1927).
Always believe that God is with you, and fear nothing.
Eliezer, The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion,
Literature and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day Volume 2, edited by Isidore Singer, Cyrus Adler, (Dec 31, 1903), p.386.
Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Aphorisms (1905).
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, Essays, First Series (1841).
O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the
seas.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Heroism", Essays: First Series (1903; vol. 2 of The
Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson), p. 259–60.
Quem metuunt oderunt; quem quisque odit, perisse expetit.
Whom they fear, they hate; and whom they hate they want dead.
Ennius as quoted by Cicero in De Officiis, Book II, Chapter 23

Quite an experience, to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.


Roy Batty in Blade Runner (1982), script by Hampton Fancher & David Peoples
Depend on me; never fear your enemies. I'll warrant We make more noise than
they.
Henry Fielding, The Universal Gallant : Or, the Different Husbands, A Comedy
(1735).
The road remains wide open while your dreams are alive. Only fear can block the
way. Let fear propel you forward. Do not look back. Do not let failure stifle you.
Iron-Tail Fratley (World Map Key Item), from Final Fantasy IX (2000).
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Ferdinand Foch, As quoted in Encarta Book of Quotations (2000) by Bill Swainson
and Anne H. Soukhanov, p. 338.

Fear, fear, she's the mother of violence


Making me tense to watch the way she breed
Fear, she's the mother of violence
You know self-defense is all you need
It's getting hard to breathe
It's getting so hard to believe
To believe in anything at all
Peter Gabriel Mother of Violence, Peter Gabriel (1978 album).

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.

First Epistle of John 4:18 NIV.


Don’t be afraid, my Lord. My father always says that fear is the devil’s hairbrush,
although no one knows quite what he means by it.
Arthur M. Jolly, in the play The Lady Demands Satisfaction, (2018)
I am not afraid to kill you for their is no death.
Alejandro Jodorowsky, El Topo, (1970).

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

because Lot always fail.

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.

Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Book I, Chapter 18 (1580).


We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we… remember that we are
not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to
associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment unpopular.
Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (March 7,
1954).
There is a mental fear, which provokes others of us to see the images of witches
in a neighbor's yard and stampedes us to burn down this house. And there is a
creeping fear of doubt, doubt of what we have been taught, of the validity of so
many things we had long since taken for granted to be durable and unchanging. It
has become more difficult than ever to distinguish black from white, good from
evil, right from wrong.
Edward R. Murrow, This I Believe (1951).
As long as I have a pen in my hand and a revolver in my pocket, I fear no one.
Benito Mussolini, 1914. Quoted in Paolo Monelli, Mussolini:the intimate life of a
demagogue, Vanguard Press, 1954.

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)

Fear is the opposite of faith.


Boyd K. Packer Do Not Fear (http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/do-not-fe
ar) , April 2004
Everybody's afraid, but to do your job in combat you have to put your fear down. If
you're not afraid in combat, you're either a fool or a liar.
George S. Patton IV, as quoted in The Bad War: An Oral History of the Vietnam
War (1987) by Kim Willenson, p. 79
I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.
Max Payne, from Max Payne PC game (2001).
The past is written, but the future is left for us to write, and we have powerful
tools, Rios: openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity. All they have is
secrecy, and fear, and fear is the great destroyer, Rios.
Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart in the Star Trek: Picard episode Broken
Pieces (March 12, 2020) written by Michael Chabon
I dread to think of a society devoid of love, compassion and humanity.
Suman Pokhrel, I dread to think of a society devoid of love, compassion and
humanity, (An interview with Romain Molina)
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, Part III, l. 66 (1711).
The wise man, fearing, keeps himself from evil; but the foolish man goes on in his
pride, with no thought of danger.
Proverbs 14:16, Bible in Basic English

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).

Fear, ladies and gentlemen, is the only true comedian in town.


Ian Rankin, The Only True Comedian

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.

François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims,


Maxim 78 (1665–1678).
Notre repentir n'est pas tant un regret du mal que nous avons fait, qu'une crainte
de celui qui nous en peut arriver.
Our repentance is not so much sorrow for the ill we have done as a fear of the ill
that may befall us.

François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims,


Maxim 180 (1665–1678).
Fear was my father, Father Fear.
His look drained the stones.
Theodore Roethke, The Lost Son, I (1948).
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to
convert retreat into advance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, inaugural address (March 4, 1933); in The Public Papers and
Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 (1938), p. 11.
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The
first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second
is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the
world. The third is freedom from want… everywhere in the world. The fourth is
freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no
nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any
neighbor — anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a
definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress (January 6, 1941).
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really
stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this
horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." …You must do the thing you
think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living (1960).
Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up.
Veronica Roth, (Divergent).
There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon,
and the anger of a gentle man.
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 43
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To
conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1950).
No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is; no
man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed
himself to see his own littleness.
Bertrand Russell, Dreams and Facts (1919).
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.
Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), "Fear, the Foundation of
Religion".
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals Ch. 16 (1929).
Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it
fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage. The craving for religious faith
being largely an outcome of fear, the advocates of faith tend to think that certain
kinds of fear are not to be deprecated. In this, to my mind, they are gravely
mistaken. To allow oneself to entertain pleasant beliefs as a means of avoiding
fear is not to live in the best way. In so far as religion makes its appeal to fear, it is
lowering to human dignity.
Bertrand Russell, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 112.
There are two ways of coping with fear: one is to diminish the external danger, and
the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except
where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the
cause of fear. The conquest of fear is of very great importance. Fear is in itself
degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is
feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. Nothing has so beneficent an
effect on human beings as security. …Fear, at present, overshadows the world. …If
matters are to improve, the first and essential step is to find a way of diminishing
fear.
Bertrand Russell, Nobel Lecture: What Desires Are Politically Important? (11
December, 1950).
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once
eccentric.
Bertrand Russell, "A Liberal Decalogue", New York Times Magazine (16 December,
1951).

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 person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself.


Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical
Aphorisms (2010) Preludes, p.3.
Fear needn’t be grounded in fact to cause problems.
Sheri S. Tepper, Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 9
Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal (September 7, 1851).
Man’s basic anxiety … drives the anxious subject to establish objects of fear.
Anxiety strives to become fear, because fear can be met by courage. … Horror is
ordinarily avoided by the transformation of anxiety into fear of something, no
matter what. The human mind is not only, as Calvin has said, a permanent factory
of idols, it is also a permanent factory of fears—the first in order to escape God,
the second in order to escape anxiety. … But ultimately the attempts to transform
anxiety into fear are vain. The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the
threat of nonbeing, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.
Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be (1952), p. 39.
Is it that they fear the pain of death, or could it be they fear the joy of life?
Toad The Wet Sprocket, Pray Your Gods (1991).

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.

Virgil, The Aeneid, Book II, l. 49.


Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”
Swami Vivekananda, Pearls of Wisdom.

The villagers fear what they do not understand.


Susan Wade, Like a Red, Red Rose, in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (eds.) Snow
White, Blood Red (1993), p. 37
The workplace is never free of fear- and it shouldn't be. Indeed, fear can be a
powerful management tool.
Wall Street Journal, "Manager's Journal: Fear Is Nothing To Be Afraid Of," January
27, 1997. As quoted by Mark Ames in Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion:
From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005), p. 103
When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I'll bid farewell to every fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes.
Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book II, hymn 65.
The only thing I am afraid of is fear.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, From Philip Henry, Earl of Stanhope,
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, published 1888 (November 3,
1831).
I think there's a lot of people out there who say we must not have horror in any
form, we must not say scary things to children because it will make them evil and
disturbed... That offends me deeply, because the world is a scary and horrifying
place, and everyone's going to get old and die, if they're that lucky. To set children
up to think that everything is sunshine and roses is doing them a great disservice.
Children need horror because there are things they don't understand. It helps them
to codify it if it is mythologized, if it's put into the context of a story, whether the
story has a happy ending or not. If it scares them and shows them a little bit of the
dark side of the world that is there and always will be, it's helping them out when
they have to face it as adults.
Joss Whedon to Michael Silverberg of NPR; quote featured in the Buffy Monster
Book (2000)
People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little
else.
Joss Whedon "Mom, He's Doing It Again.." (Whedonesque.com November 10,
2007) (http://whedonesque.com/comments/14699#more)
I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has
unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on
Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their
beliefs in order to hold their jobs. The idea is inconsistent with our constitutional
theory and has been stubbornly opposed by watchful men since the early days of
the Republic.
E. B. White, letter to the New York Herald Tribune (November 29, 1947).
Scare myself to death
That's why I keep on running
Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers, Feel, Escapology (18 November 2002)
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure.
Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course
in Miracles", Ch. 7, Section 3 (1992) P. 190.
There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint
that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into
dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled — by fear of prison, by fear of whips or
electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those
fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more
dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
Robert Anton Wilson, in Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy : The Trick Top Hat (1979)
Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.
William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book I, l. 301 (written 1799-1805).

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

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 267-


70.
No one loves the man whom he fears.
Aristotle.
Crux est si metuas quod vincere nequeas.
It is tormenting to fear what you cannot overcome.

Ausonius, Septem Sapientum Sententiæ Septenis Versibus Explicatæ, VII. 4.


The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational;
But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
Joanna Baillie, Count Basil (1798), Act III, scene 1, line 151.
An aching tooth is better out than in,
To lose a rotten member is a gain.
Richard Baxter, Hypocrisy.
Dangers bring fears, and fears more dangers bring.
Richard Baxter, Love Breathing Thanks and Praise.
The fear o' hell's the hangman's whip
To laud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border.
Robert Burns, Epistle to a Young Friend.
Fear is an ague, that forsakes
And haunts, by fits, those whom it takes;
And they'll opine they feel the pain
And blows they felt, to-day, again.
Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto III.
His fear was greater than his haste:
For fear, though fleeter than the wind,
Believes 'tis always left behind.
Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part III (1678), Canto III, line 64.
In summo periculo timor misericordiam non recipit.
In extreme danger fear feels no pity.

Julius Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, VII. 26.


El miedo tiene muchos ojos.
Fear has many eyes.

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, III. 6.


Timor non est diuturnus magister officii.
Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

Cicero, Philippicæ, II. 36.


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 (1798; 1817), Part VI.
His frown was full of terror, and his voice
Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe
As left him not, till penitence had won
Lost favor back again, and clos'd the breach.
William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book II, line 659.
The clouds dispell'd, the sky resum'd her light,
And Nature stood recover'd of her fright.
But fear, the last of ills, remain'd behind,
And horror heavy sat on every mind.
John Dryden, Theodore and Honorio, line 336.
We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger.
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Book VII, Chapter V.
Fear always springs from ignorance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar.
Fear is the parent of cruelty.
James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, Party Politics.
Quia me vestigia terrent
Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum.
I am frightened at seeing all the footprints directed towards thy den, and none
returning.
Horace, Epistles, I. 1. 74.
You are uneasy, * * * you never sailed with me before, I see.
Andrew Jackson, Parton's Life of Jackson, Volume III, p. 493.
Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.
Samuel Johnson, from Miss Reynolds, Recollections of Johnson.
De loin, c'est quelque chose; et de prés, ce n'est rien.
From a distance it is something; and nearby it is nothing.

Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, IV. 10.


Major ignotarum rerum est terror.
Apprehensions are greater in proportion as things are unknown.

Livy, Annales, XXVIII. 44.


Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Light of Stars, Stanza 9.
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak.
James Russell Lowell, Stanzas on Freedom, last stanza.
The direst foe of courage is the fear itself, not the object of it; and the man who
can overcome his own terror is a hero and more.
George MacDonald, Sir Gibbie, Chapter XX.
Wink and shut their apprehensions up.
John Marston, Antonio's Revenge, Prolog.
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason; that
passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Fear.
Imagination frames events unknown,
In wild, fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,
And what it fears creates.
Hannah More, Belshazzar, Part II.
Quem metuit quisque, perisse cupit.
Every one wishes that the man whom he fears would perish.

Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), II. 2. 10.


Membra reformidant mollem quoque saucia tactum:
Vanaque sollicitis incutit umbra metum.
The wounded limb shrinks from the slightest touch; and a slight shadow alarms
the nervous.

Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, II. 7. 13.


Terretur minimo pennæ stridore columba
Unguibus, accipiter, saucia facta tuis.
The dove, O hawk, that has once been wounded by thy talons, is frightened by the
least movement of a wing.

Ovid, Tristium, I. 1. 75.


Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies,
Not louder shrieks to pitying Heaven are cast,
When husbands, or when lap dogs, breathe their last;
Or when rich China vessels fallen, from high,
In glittering dust and painted fragments lie.
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), Canto III, line 155.
A lamb appears a lion, and we fear
Each bush we see's a bear.
Francis Quarles, Emblems, Book I, Emblem XIII, line 19.
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
Walter Raleigh, written on a window pane for Queen Elizabeth to see. She wrote
under it "If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all." Thomas Fuller, Worthies of
England, Volume I, p. 419.
Ad deteriora credenda proni metu.
Fear makes men believe the worst.

Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, IV, 3, 22.


Ubi explorari vera non possunt, falsa per metum augentur.
When the truth cannot be clearly made out, what is false is increased through fear.

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.

Sallust, Catilina, LVIII.


Wer nichts fürchtet ist nicht weniger mächtig, als der, den Alles fürchtet.
The man who fears nothing is not less powerful than he who is feared by every
one.

Friedrich Schiller, Die Räuber, I. 1.


Wenn ich einmal zu fürchten angefangen
Hab' ich zu fürchten aufgehört.
As soon as I have begun to fear I have ceased to fear.

Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos, I. 6. 68.


Ich weiss, dass man vor leeren Schrecken zittert;
Doch wahres Unglück bringt der falsche Wahn.
I know that oft we tremble at an empty terror, but the false phantasm brings a real
misery.

Friedrich Schiller, Piccolomini, V. 1. 105.


Scared out of his seven senses.
Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Chapter XXIV.
Necesse est multos timeat, quem multi timent.
He must necessarily fear many, whom many fear.

Seneca the Younger, De Ira, II. 11.


Si vultis nihil timere, cogitate omnia esse timenda.
If you wish to fear nothing, consider that everything is to be feared.

Seneca the Younger, Quæstionum Naturalium, VI. 2.


Tunc plurima versat
Pessimus in dubiis augur timor.
Then fear, the very worst prophet in misfortunes, anticipates many evils.

Statius, Thebais, III. 5.


Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.
Fear in the world first created the gods.

Statius, Thebais, III. 661.


Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialogue I.
Etiam fortes viros subitis terreri.
Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.

Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), XV. 59.


Bello in si bella vistà anco è l'orrore,
E di mezzo la tema esce il diletto.
Horror itself in that fair scene looks gay,
And joy springs up e'en in the midst of fear.

Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme, XX. 30.


Fear
Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face.
Alfred Tennyson, The Princess (1847), IV, line 357.
Desponding Fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, loosens every power.
James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring (1728), line 286.
Il faut tout attendre et tout craindre du temps et des hommes.
We must expect everything and fear everything from time and from men.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Réflexions, CII.


Obstupui, steteruntque comæ, et vox faucibus hæsit.
I was astounded, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my throat.

Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), II. 774, and III. 48.


Degeneres animos timor arguit.
Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.

Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), IV. 13.


Pedibus timor addidit alas.
Fear gave wings to his feet.

Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), VIII. 224.


Full twenty times was Peter feared,
For once that Peter was respected.
William Wordsworth, Peter Bell, Part I, Stanza 3.
Less base the fear of death than fear of life.
Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night V, line 441.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers


(1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert's Dictionary of Burning Words of


Brilliant Writers (https://archive.org/details/dictionaryburni00gilbgoog) (1895).

He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.


Christian Nestell Bovee, p. 244.
When you have overcome one temptation, you must be ready to enter the lists
with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the
gate of danger. A man had need to fear this most of all, that he fears not at all.
Thomas Brooks, p. 532.
There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear,
which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in
whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we
do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other
character fear to find Him.
Blaise Pascal, p. 244.
Nothing so demoralizes the forces of the soul as fear. Only as we realize the
presence of the Lord does fear give place to faith.
Sarah Smiley, p. 243.
It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the fear of man.
John Witherspoon, p. 243.

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

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