Quotes About Anxiety

Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because--despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content--these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.

All education is based on a middle-class morality that finds its psychoanalytic equivalent in a powerfully developed reality principle which insists that one must largely forego present pleasure for greater gains in the future. The trouble is that this, too, is not learned on a rational basis, but through anxiety instilled by the parents and by their example. If parents do not live by a stringent morality and by the reality principle, neither will their children.

I am very much in favor of fairy tales. Anxiety-provoking things happen, serious things happen, still there is a happy ending. But you don't have to use fairy tales. Let's have a serious story about the Puritans, one that goes beyond turkeys and Thanksgiving. Why not talk about the fact that the Puritans were so rigid the Dutch couldn't stand them and kicked them out? Speak about how undesirable rigity can be and the need for tolerance.

The fear of failure is so great, it is no wonder that the desire to do right by one's children has led to a whole library of books offering advice on how to raise them.

If we fear the unknown then surely we fear ourselves.

If you don't have children the longing for them will kill you, and if you do, the worrying over them will kill you.

Se a claustrofobia do espírito fora a doença dos vitorianos, em troca, era, agora, a agorafobia do espírito o tormento que viria a atazanar os seus descendentes.

and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me

His mind swarmed with superstitious suspicions.

Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night.

Trust = telling someone about the things that make you sleepless.

Trust = telling someone about the things that make you sleepless. Or trying to, at least. Wanting to.

perhaps having all encountered the nightmare that haunted Pope — "that he was engaged in a long journey," as Joseph Spence reports, "puzzled which way to take, and full of fears" that it would never end. And if you reach the end, the fears may start in earnest.

The degree to which a surviving parent copes is the most important indicator of the child's long-term adaptation. Kids whose surviving parents are unable to function effectively in the parenting role show more anxiety and depression, as well as sleep and health problems, than those whose parents have a strong support network and solid inner resources to rely on.

and his body responding with that maddening slowness from which one suffers when chased by the phantoms of nightmare.

the abnormal always excites aversion, distrust, and fear.

Money, he said, is a terrible nuisance. But it's nice not to have to worry.

The artist's secret lies in fear and awe. Our times have turned them into terror and dismay.

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.

The car suddenly veered off the road and we came to a sliding halt in the gravel. I was hurled against the dashboard. My attorney was slumped over the wheel. "What's wrong?" I yelled. "We can't stop here. This is bat country!

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot - and it's only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid impotent fear. (In a letter dated 9-26-58)

What? No. We can't stop here. This is bat country.

There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.

Fear? I know not fear. There are only moments of confusion.