quotations about fear
Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what you know is right.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Inheritance
Face your fears or they will climb over your back.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
If there is one thing which I would banish from the earth it is fear.
HENRY FORD
Theosophist Magazine, Feb. 1930
In regard to the great mass of men, anything that breaks the realm of fear is not salutary, but dangerous; because it takes off one of the hoops that hold the barrel together in which the evil spirits are confined.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Fear is another emotion that is strongly suppressed. We cannot afford to be afraid, and so we don't allow ourselves to sense and feel the fear within us. We lower our brows to deny it, set our jaws to defy it, and smile to deceive ourselves. But inwardly we remain scared to death.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
Fear of Life
Something indefinite is always worse than something definite, a strong fear that doesn't last very long is easier than one that's nebulous but doesn't go away.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
I used to think the reason I'd like to stop letting fear run my life was that it felt so bad to be afraid, and also that it was pointless--possibly wasted, if the feared thing never did materialize. But now that fear has packed its miserable bags and is running out the door, making slamming noises to call attention to itself, I begin to see how much room fear has occupied. What opportunity opens up!
JAN FRAZIER
When Fear Falls Away
Fear is the enemy of logic.
FRANK SINATRA
quoted in The Way You Wear Your Hat
You are frightened of everything. You call it caution. You call it common sense. You call it practicality. You call it playing the odds, but that's only because you're afraid to call it by its real name, and its real name is fear.
MICK FARREN
Darklost
Fear is contagious. You can catch it.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Graveyard Book
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.
SENECA
Epistles
Fear was there, too, cold and hot at the same time, making everything in the plain room sharper, with fewer shadows.
ALLISON BRENNAN
Fear No Evil
Not to fear where there is occasion, is as great a weakness as to fear unduly, without reason.... Fear is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance upon the approach of danger.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I know beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.
JOHN STEINBECK
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Fear is the brother of hate.
LARRY NIVEN
Ringworld
All is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear.
ALFRED
LORD TENNYSON, In Memoriam
Fear has no brains; it is an idiot.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"The Moonlit Road"
Fear is a fantastic marketing tool.
DANIEL GARDNER
The Science of Fear
When we fear things I think that we wish for them ... every fear hides a wish.
DAVID MAMET
Edmond
You see something scary, you should stand up and step toward it, not away from it. Instinctively, reflexively, in a raging fury.
LEE CHILD
Echo Burning