1,181 Fear Quotes

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.

We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the CIA, you really have nothing to worry about. If however, you have a name similar to somebody on a list targeted by the CIA, then you are dead.

Crime, folly, sickness and all phenomena must be contemplated with complete freedom from fear aversion or shame. Otherwise we shall fail to see accurately, and interpret intelligently; in which case we shall be unable to outwit and outfight them.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

When irrational terror takes to itself the fiat of moral goodness somebody has to die. ... No man lives who has not got a panic button, and when it is pressed by the clean white hand of moral duty, a certain murderous train is set in motion.

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.

Britney: My love doesn't scare me. Other people's love scares me.

So for you people who are filled with fear that I might someday be released: breathe easy, I don't see it happening.

Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.

The monsters act out our rage. They act on their worst impulses, which is appealing to a certain part of us. They get punished for it, but we've enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation.

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 approach these problems, and, perversely perhaps, to enjoy a vicarious confrontation with them.

Here is a list of fearful things: The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings, The rabid bite of the dog's of war, The voice of one who went before. But most of all the mirror's gaze, which counts us out our numbered days.

As a child, I was more afraid of tetanus shots than, for example, Dracula.

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.

The ability of a country to wage war is not an accurate measure of its strengths, but of its fears.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.

I'll probably be popped off by some loony.

If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.

The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.

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.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.

It was all completely incomprehensible to me. I was fearful of the language. You had to look up every third word.

Nobody ever grew despondent looking for trouble.

I have gotten so many tickets. I hope I don't get my license revoked.

I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.

If facts weren't funny, or scary, or couldn't make you rich, the heck with them.

Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.

I have a kind of psychic invisibility. As long as I can stay scared, I can keep people from seeing me. That's what we have to count on.

How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares if there seemed any danger of their coming true!

My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears.

It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.

We Call Them the Brave who likely were reluctant to be brave.

Most fear stems from sin; to limit one's sins, one must assuredly limit one's fear, thereby bringing more peace to one's spirit.

If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.

Education helps one case cease being intimidated by strange situations.

One of the problems, hanging out with me, is that I can turn any topic into a toxic horror story. I've lost two girlfriends and a job by reading an ingredients label out loud, with annotations, at the wrong time.

I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.

Love is random; fear is inevitable.

Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.

Everyone wishes that the man whom he fears would perish.

Love is full of anxious fears.

Minds that are ill at ease are agitated by both hope and fear.

There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it.

In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare.

Only those with great ambitions know what great fears drive them forward.

I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.

If there's one thing I can't bear, it's when hundreds of old men come creeping in through the window in the middle of the night and throw all manner of garbage over me. I can't bear that.

Playing rugby at school I once fell on a loose ball and, through ignorance and fear, held on despite a fierce pummelling. After that it took me months to convince my team-mates I was a coward.

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence.

Those who own much have much to fear.

Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

I don't want to die in a car accident. When I die it'll be a glorious day. It'll probably be a waterfall.

Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?

Courage is the capacity to meet the anxiety which arises as one achieves freedom. It is the willingness to differentiate, to move from the protecting realms of parental dependence to new levels of freedom and integration.

Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.

Whenever I get happy, I always have a terrible feeling.

Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.

Not justified - but Himmler told me that if the Jews were not exterminated at that time, then the German people would be exterminated for all time by the Jews.

One woman approached me as she walked past and, pointing to her four children who were manfully helping the smallest ones over the rough ground, whispered: 'How can you bring yourself to kill such beautiful, darling children? Have you no heart at all?' One old man, as he passed me, hissed: 'Germany will pay a heavy penance for this mass murder of the Jews.' His eyes glowed with hatred as he said this. Nevertheless he walked calmly into the gas-chamber.

Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.

If world is suspicious that Israel may detonate nuclear bomb and if the suspicion is a deterrent - that's good enough.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.

One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist except in our imaginations.

When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six I'll be ninety.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.

In social situations I still feel scared. My best friend and husband give me the freedom to be myself.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies, worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders into the cave and starts to purr.