Quotes About Fear

Why does the joy of love contain so much sadness? We're afraid of the sadness because it grows and spreads and becomes too terrible to be borne. And because it leads to tenderness. Tenderness. The moment of tenderness, the undoing, unbearable moment of tenderness.

People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs.

The reaper lacks the eyes to hold him back;

she was very frightened because the world had changed all of a sudden and it wasn't hers anymore and she didn't know who owned it.

But, like all human beings, she still had unfulfilled longings. She could still be as lonely and frightened as a child, and with as little reason.

One cannot live in perpetual fear. One has to be as prudent as possible, and get on with life. Don't worry about me.

I wanted you to do it all for me. I wanted everything to be all easy and simple.... So I tried to pretend that it was all your fault... because I was scared, and I didn't want to have to do anything myself— But I wanted to do it for you, Mr. Murry said. That's what every parent wants.

In moments of decision, we are to try to make what seems to be the most loving, the most creative decision. We are not to play safe, to draw back out of fear. Love may well lead us into danger. It may lead us to die for our friend. In a day when we are taught to look for easy solutions, it is not always easy to hold on to that most difficult one of all, love.

Okay, I can get to the grade school all right, but I can't possibly take you with me. You're so big you wouldn't even fit into the school bus. Anyhow, you'd terrify everybody.' At the thought she smiled, but Proginoskes was not in a laughing mood. 'Not everybody is able to see me,' he told her. 'I'm real, and most earthlings can bear very little reality.

What could there be about a shadow that was so terrible that she knew that there had never been before or ever would be again, anything that would chill her with a fear beyond the possibility of comfort?

Of course. I am well aware that the streets of New York are not safe, but then there is no longer any place in the world which is safe. One cannot live in perpetual fear, one has to be as prudent as possible, and get on with life. - A Severed Wasp

There is nothing to fear except fear itself

It's all right, Meg assured the Medium earnestly. Truly it is, Mrs. Medium, and we thank you very much. Are you sure? the Medium asked, brightening. Of course! It really helped me ever so much because it made me mad, and when I'm mad I don't have room to be scared.

But there it was again. His face, handsome, petulant, impatient, the way he was when he didn't get what he wanted. 'Get out of here, Louis,' she said aloud. 'I've nothing to lose now,' Louis said. 'I'll bring you down with me, you'll be sorry you didn't listen to me. I've nothing to lose.' There was a huge truck. The lights of a truck and a terrible shattering of glass and … Then there was nothing.

2. Men like women without make-up. They don't. They like extremely well and carefully made-up women whose skin has that expensive cultured look which comes from three hours at the dressing table. A woman who is really without make-up would frighten them to death. They regard blotches as eczema, and uneven colouring as a sign of tertiary syphilis.

Nolan said his mother had got a bit better about things and that she had agreed to go away next summer for a holiday by the sea. Nolan's whole family had been wanting to do this for ages but his mother had always said the seaside was full of rats and beetles and sea snakes. St. Patrick had only got rid of the land snakes according to Nolan's mother, but he had no power over the huge snakes calling themselves eels which came in on beaches all over the country.

she said in a voice disguising her terror. She had seen real annoyance and impatience in his eyes.

She wanted to say, no. She wanted to say, I have a son, there is a child, this cannot happen. Because you know that no one will ever love them like you do. You know that no one will look after them like you do. You know that it's an impossibility, it's unthinkable that you could be taken away, that you will have to leave them behind.

What is embarrassment but a relative of fear? You've been seen—caught—at being imperfect.

I felt utterly stripped of safety and love. And so, what tormented me most as I shook through August of 1988 wasn't the nausea and chills but the recurring fear that I'd never have lasting comfort or joy again.

Fear and threat also literally shunt energy away from the areas of the brain involved in self-control and abstract reasoning—the exact opposite of what you want when you are trying to teach someone new ways of thinking and acting.

We are all of us not merely liable to fear, we are also prone to be afraid of being afraid, and the conquering of fear produces exhilaration.…The contrast between the previous apprehension and the present relief and feeling of security promotes a self-confidence that is the very father and mother of courage.

they were not really afraid. They were just afraid of being afraid.

Incompetence annoys me. Overconfidence terrifies me.