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Fear

LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading

• “I should say that, in addition to my tree-love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings, the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story...”

  J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: About "Leaf by Niggle", in a letter to Caroline Everett (24 June 1957)

• “I do so dearly believe that no half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.”

  J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Edith, as quoted in J. R. R. Tolkien: a biography (1977) by Humphrey Carpenter, p. 66

• “I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighbourhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.”

  J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is good to be a cynic—it is better to be a contented cat — and it is best not to exist at all. Universal suicide is the most logical thing in the world—we reject it only because of our primitive cowardice and childish fear of the dark. If we were sensible we would seek death—the same blissful blank which we enjoyed before we existed.”

  H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Nietzscheism and Realism" from The Rainbow, Vol. I, No. 1 (October 1921); reprinted in "To Quebec and the Stars", and also in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 71

• “It will lead to nothing, I fear, sir”

  Martin Joseph Routh (1755–1854) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Remarked to William Palmer, on the eve of his 1840-1 journey to Russia to improve Anglican-Orthodox relations. The trip reaped little success; quoted in Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the Years 1840, 1841, by…

• “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, both of their futures so full of dread.”

  Bob Dylan (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again.”

  Carl Sagan (1934–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahāmati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh.”

  Gautama Buddha (501–501 BC) said by 501 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The time will soon come when the best property of a Muslim will be some sheep which he takes to the peaks of the mountains and to places where the rain falls, in order to flee out of the fear that his deen will be tempted.”

  Muhammad (571–632) said by 632 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Fear Allah and treat your children [small or grown] fairly (with equal justice).”

  Muhammad (571–632) said by 632 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No man — prince, peasant, pope, — has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy!”

  Morris West (1916–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is not the fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the flag of imagination furled.”

  André Breton (1896–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The halo around the heads of Plato and Socrates is now gone. He sees that they consistently are doing exactly that which they accuse the Sophists of doing—using emotionally persuasive language for the ulterior purpose of making the weaker argument, the case for dialectic, appear the stronger. We always condemn most in others, he thought, that which we most fear in ourselves.”

  Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests.”

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It will be a strange sort of book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree; — & to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.”

  Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On Moby-Dick, in a letter to Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1 May 1850)

• “The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. (You perceive I employ a capital initial in the pronoun referring to the Deity; don't you think there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in that usage?)”

  Herman Melville (1819–1891) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (June 1, 1851)

• “People living deeply have no fear of death.”

  Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)

• “Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so Who art not missed by any that entreat.”

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) said by 1861 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The heart which, like a staff, was one For mine to lean and rest upon, The strongest on the longest day With steadfast love, is caught away, And yet my days go on, go on.And cold before my summer's done, And deaf in Nature's general tune, And fallen too low for special fear, And here, with hope no longer here, While the tears drop, my days go on.”

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) said by 1861 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I must not fear.”

  Frank Herbert (1920–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression, which may attack us from without, and the forces of ignorance and fear which may corrupt us from within.”

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at Madison Square Garden, October 28, 1940

• “If we lose that sacred fire — if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear — then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish. The preservation of the spirit and faith of the Nation does, and will, furnish the highest justification for every sacrifice that we may make in the cause of national defense.”

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.”

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The purpose of life...is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Foreword (January 1960)

• “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven Is Love's location. No dogmatic creed, No austere faith based on ignoble fear Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace. Unless the humblest creatures on the earth Are bettered by thy loving sympathy Think not to find a Paradise beyond.”

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Way (1913).

• “People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else.”

  Joss Whedon (born 1964) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Mom, He's Doing It Again..", at Whedonesque.com (10 November 2007)

• “On the whole, I don't have any friends. Friends come and go; I've lost my trust factor. I believe I have people who think they're my friend. And I believe that there are people probably in their heart who are friends toward me or are friends to me. But they're not my friends, because what I learned is that fear is stronger than love.”

  Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If it is God who gives the spirit of power and strength, then it is also the same God who gives “the spirt of self-control,” and if ignoble cowardice and fear of people are just as detestable in any age, the excess of eager enthusiasm, “zeal without wisdom,” are no less corrupting and at times are fundamentally just as detestable, just as blasphemous.”

  Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) said by 1855 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality?' Many of my stories and novels deal with psychotic states or drug-induced states by which I can present the concept of a multiverse rather than a universe. Music and sociology are themes in my novels, also radical political trends; in particular I've written about fascism and my fear of it.”

  Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Statement of 1975 quoted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 8, Part 1 (1981)

• “I have given them life instead of death, freedom instead of the cords of superstition, beauty and truth instead of corruption and exploitation. The old bad days are over for them, the Light of the Aton has risen, and they can dwell in peace and harmony freed from the shadow of fear and oppression.”

  Agatha Christie (1890–1976) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Akhenaten, as portrayed in Akhnaton (1937); Christie later revised the play slightly in 1972, and it was published in 1973.

• “Fear is incomplete knowledge.”

  Agatha Christie (1890–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Now you fear punishment and beg for your lives, so I will let you free, if not for any other reason so that you can see the difference between a Greek king and a barbarian tyrant, so do not expect to suffer any harm from me. A king does not kill messengers.”

  Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) said by 323 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Despite all evidence to the contrary I do not believe humans innately cruel, but they fear change of any kind.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Love, Fear, and Esteem, — Write these on three stones.”

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “That man is of supreme folly who always wants for fear of wanting; and his life flies away while he is still hoping to enjoy the good things which he has with extreme labour acquired.”

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Fear arises sooner than anything else.”

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it.”

  Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Working together, we can build a world in which the rule of law — not the rule of force — governs relations between states. A world in which leaders respect the rights of their people, and nations seek peace, not destruction or domination. And neither we nor anyone else should live in fear ever again.”

  Wesley Clark (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As regards the Dalai Lama, we do not want any incident to take place about Dalai Lama in Kalimpong or while he is in India. We will do as Your Excellency and Dalai Lama decide. What kind of incident does Your Excellency fear might happen? If you can give some specific idea about the trouble, we can prevent it.”

  Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Nehru to Chou En-Lai, in 1956. SWJN, XXXV.522.ff SWJN: Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi. and in Arun Shourie - Self-Deception _ India's China Policies_ Origins…

• “This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness. No, the majority of the Economists look with sincere resentment upon all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for organising revolutionaries, etc.”

  Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The fear of becoming a "has been" keeps some people from becoming anything.”

  Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.”

  Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Words have meaning, but not anymore. And when I hear 'transphobic,' 'phobic' has a meaning: Fear. I'm not transphobic if I merely disagree with you. It's not hate.”

  Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I don't fear A.I. anymore because it couldn't possibly be any more robotic than the humans who run things now.”

  Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We don’t want to be manipulated by right-wing elitist billionaires or by left-wing guys that don’t understand our life on the ground that is living in fear of crime, that is living as a result of inflation that is killing us in many parts of the country. We need gas to go to work.”

  Al Sharpton (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.”

  Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Authoritarian Personality (1950), p. 976, co-written with Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford

• “Children, Fear God; that is to say, have an holy awe upon your minds to avoid that which is evil, and a strict care to embrace and do that which is good.”

  William Penn (1644–1718) said by 1718 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives.”

  Stephen King (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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