Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The quote lists common fears but concludes that the greatest fear is the mirror reminding us of our mortality.
In plain terms
We fear many things, but nothing is scarier than realizing we are running out of time.
What can you take from it?
Mortality is the ultimate fear that overshadows all others.

Where it applies

  • reflecting on life
  • facing aging
  • philosophical contemplation

Putting it to work

  • journaling about fears
  • mortality salience exercises
  • creative writing prompts

Questions to consider

  • What scares you most about time passing?
  • How do you face your own mortality?

Another view

It generalizes human fear as universal without accounting for cultural differences.

More from Clive Barker

  1. Being gay is a spectacular irrelevance to getting on with your life.

    Permalink to quote #18
  2. Life is short, and pleasures few, and holed the ship, and drowned the crew, But O! But O! How very blue the sea is!

    Permalink to quote #20
  3. Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work.

    Permalink to quote #17

Related quotes

  1. The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the tw…

    Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov quote #9
  2. At best you can hold death at bay, you can pretend it isn't there; but to deny it totally is a sickness. And I think that horror fiction is one of the ways to …

    Clive BarkerClive Barker quote #16
  3. Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.

    Dante Gabriel RossettiDante Gabriel Rossetti quote #17