Quotes About Fear

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more in apprehension than in reality,

species that "fear rightly" increase their chances of survival. We anxious people are less likely to remove ourselves from the gene pool by, say, frolicking on the edge of cliffs or becoming fighter pilots.

Fear sharpens the senses. Anxiety paralyzes them. —KURT GOLDSTEIN, The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology (1939)

During high school, I would purposely lose tennis and squash matches to escape the agony of anxiety that competitive situations would provoke in me.

Social phobics worry that their interpersonal awkwardness or the physical manifestations of anxiety—their blushing and shaking and stammering and sweating—will somehow reveal them to be weak or incompetent. So they get nervous, and then they stammer or blush, which makes them more nervous, which makes them stammer and blush more, which propels them into a vicious cycle of increasing anxiety and deteriorating performance. Blushing

But less so than I did before. Not long ago in my own therapy with Dr. W., we moved gingerly into "imaginal" exposure for my phobias.

The politics of death is bureaucracy, routine, rules, status quo. The politics of life is personal initiative, creativity, flair, dash, a little daring. The politics of death is calculation, prudence, measured gestures. The politics of life is experience, spontaneity, grace, directness. The politics of death is fear of youth. The politics of life is to trust the young to their own experiences.

A report published by Britain's Mental Health Foundation in 2009 concluded that a "culture of fear"—marked by a shaky economy and hyperbolic threat-mongering by politicians and the media—had produced "record levels of anxiety" in Great Britain.

Today, evolutionary psychologists say Watson misinterpreted his Little Albert experiment: the real reason Albert developed such a profound phobia of rats was not because behavioral conditioning is so intrinsically potent but because the human brain has a natural—and evolutionarily adaptive—predisposition to fear small furry things on the basis of the diseases they carry. (I explore this at greater length in chapter 9.)

Other recent research suggests that James and Lange were right in observing that physiological processes in the body are crucial to driving emotions and determining their intensity. For instance, a growing number of studies show that facial expressions can produce—rather than just reflect—the emotions associated with them. Smile and you will be happy; tremble, as James said, and you will be afraid.

Fear arises from a weakness of mind and therefore does not appertain to the use of reason. —BARUCH SPINOZA (CIRCA 1670)

The result of a physiological fear response that has no legitimate object, or that is disproportionate to the size of the threat, can be pathological anxiety—an evolutionary impulse gone awry.

Horror is a lot like sex," Moore continued. "It's raw and it's primal and when it's good—when it's really good—it even hurts a little. But the good kind of pain, you know?

Horror is the result of sin. Sin gives way to temptation. Temptation is the number-one weapon of the Devil.

Whatever entity now resided within its walls, it found life through a legacy of tragedy and fear.

I knew it; I bloody knew it," he muttered. "It followed us. Whatever was in that house, it followed every one of us.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to carry on in spite of it.

From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

Interestingly enough, the most-asked question in the whole Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—is "How long, O Lord, how long?" And the most repeated command from God is "Do not fear" or "Do not be afraid." The people of God consistently cry out for relief, and the God of love bids us trust him.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? (Ps. 56:3–4 NIV)

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (Ps. 46:1–3)

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:18–19)

For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. (2 Cor. 7:5–6)

The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love. (Ps. 33:16–18)