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Fear
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“...the perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so that profit maximization is not really the driving force. It is fear of loss rather than hope of gain that limits our behavior”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One must preach life, not death; spread hope, not fear and cultivate joy, man's most valuable treasure. That is the secret of the greatest of the wise, and it will be the light of tomorrow. Passions are sad. Hatred is sad. Joy destroys passions and hatred. Let us begin by telling ourselves that sadness is never noble, beautiful or useful.”
Émile Chartier (1868–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Come, Death! If really thou hast started already to come—welcome! These flowers may tremble to fade away, These juicy grapes to wither, But why should I fear Thee? I have but these wines of tears that fill my cup to offer Thee And which I thought over-drinking cannot exhaust; Come if that be acceptable to Thee!”
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: English translation. From a a poem, ‘On the Death-Bed’ (Maranonmukh Shayyevar )., quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)
“Pitching is the art of instilling fear, making the man flinch by making him look for the wrong pitch. You're trying to control his instincts. But if your control is suspect like Ryan's is, and the thought of being hit is in the batter's mind, you'll go a long way.”
Sandy Koufax (born 1935) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Baseball's Exorcist Striking Out to New Horizons; Batter's Fear Helps Ryan Blaze Lay [sic] to Major League Record" by Jackie Lapin, in The Washington Post (September 1, 1974)
“The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West… The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and Western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.”
Aga Khan IV (1936–2025) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Closing Address by His Highness the Aga Khan at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, (17 October 2007)
“What is the internally free man free from? First of all - he or she is free from fear of people and life; from conventional opinion. He or she is independent from the crowd, from stereotypical thinking. He or she is able to have their own personal point of view; free from prejudices. He or she is free from envy, selfishness and from aggressive personal drives.”
Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And after tea, we play Junior Scrabble. We are the ideal nuclear family. We eat together, we play improving board games instead of watching television, we smile alot. I fear that at any moment I may kill somebody.”
Nick Hornby (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's rain on the wind, the tears of spirits, The clink of key on iron is near, A shuttling train passes by on rail, There's more than God for man to fear.”
Bobby Sands (1954–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think I have more of a fear of success. I want to have a good time, I want to hang out with my friends and laugh about shit, I want to make music where I can just say 'Hey, check this out, this is crazy, have a listen…and anyway, what did you do today?'”
Devin Townsend (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Case officers most fear the US ambassador and his staff, then restrictive headquarters cables, then curious gossipy neighbours in the local community, as potential threats to the operation. Next would come the local police, then the press. Last of all is the KGB.”
John Stockwell (1937–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was a child, I first noticed that neither history as I was taught it, nor the stories I was told, seemed to lead to me. I began to fix them. I have been at it ever since. We need a past that leads to us. Similarly, what we imagine we are working toward does a lot to define what we will consider doable action aimed at producing the future we want and preventing the future we fear.”
Marge Piercy (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love silence but I fear emptiness. (p11)”
Marge Piercy (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before you, the strongest feeling I knew was fear." (Yod, twenty-two: THE PRESENT)”
Marge Piercy (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is first boredom, then fear. Whether or not we use it, it goes, And leaves what something hidden from us chose, And age, and then the only end of age.”
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No disease any refugee might bring to America is as dangerous as the disease of fear, bigotry and hatred now being spread in America by Fox.”
Bill Kristol (born 1952) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Twitter post (29 October 2018)
“I usually quite like women, but this advert makes me want to kill about 900 of them with my bare hands. It ends with the tiresome ladettes marching down a high street triumphantly singing the Here Come the Girls song out loud, like an invading squadron tormenting the natives with its war cry. Next year they'll probably be armed. Fear this.”
Charlie Brooker (born 1971) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian 16 November 2009.
“It is the most wretched spectacle you can imagine. I won't fight for two reasons: firstly because I have no faith in waging war with guns and cannons, and it is not part of my creed. For ten years I have been fighting a war of wits. I would not be true to myself if I acted otherwise. Secondly, I have no weapons and I won't be persuaded. So you have nothing to fear where I am concerned”
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from a letter to his parents, (June 1848); as cited in Georges Riat Gustave Courbet, Parkstone International (2015).
“The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know. All these therapies, all these techniques, religious or otherwise, are only perpetuating the agony of man.”
U. G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The good needs fear no law, It is his safety and the bad man's awe.”
Philip Massinger (1583–1640) first seen 1615 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Old Law (c. 1615–18; printed 1656), with Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
“I know there are some people in Germany who become sick when they see these black uniforms, we understand the reason for this, and do not expect we shall be loved by all that number of people; those who come to fear us in any way or at any time must have a bad conscience towards the Fuhrer and the nation. For these persons we have established an organisation called the Security Service.”
Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From his treatise "The Security Squadron as an Anti-Bolshevik Battle Organisation", (1936)
“The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.”
Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Alberto Rivas Visions of Reality - A Study of Abnormal Perception and Behavior (2007), p. 162
“Knowledge, even that which may unsettle us, it surely to be preferred to ignorance, however blissful in the short term the latter may be. All too often, however, political anxiousness favors ignorance and its apparent safety: we had better not learn about the genetics of skin color, goes the unspoken fear, lest such information be marshaled somehow by hatemongers opposed to mixing among the races.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here, in the bare dark face of night A calm unhurried eye draws sight —We see in what we think we fear The cloudings of our thought made clear”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On this purely practical issue he judged massacre wasteful and even contrary as a method of control. Fear lasted a week, anger a year and resentment a lifetime, he’d held.”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do believe my sarcasm-meter just twitched.” “A false positive, I fear. I was being entirely sincere.”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first time he saw somebody else he felt a mixture of emotions; fear, joy, expectation and a kind of disappointment that this wilderness was not his alone.”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(On performing in Costa Rica for the first time) It was like finding some weird tribe in the middle of the jungle and, you know, they all come out and go: "Fear of the Dark. Favorite Album." What?!?”
Bruce Dickinson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In times of violence, personal predilections for niceties of colour and form seem irrelevant. All primitive expression (like the myths) reveals the constant awareness of powerful forces, the immediate presence of terror and fear.”
Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio broadcast with Mark Rothko, 1943, as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990.
“Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes away good things, it takes away also the desire for them. Old age is the supreme evil, because it deprives us of all pleasures, leaving us only the appetite for them, and it brings with it all sufferings. Nevertheless, we fear death, and we desire old age.”
Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) said by 1837 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thoughts. Translation by J.G. Nichols [Hesperus Press, 2002, ], p. 6
“Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight…”
Henry Taylor (1800–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Degas isn't enough of a painter; he doesn't have enough of that! With a little bit of temperament one can manage to be a painter, It's enough to have a sense of art, and that sense is no doubt what the bourgeoisie fear most.. .For a painter, sensation is at the bottom of everything. I will go on repeating it forever. Procedures are not what I advocate.”
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) said by 1906 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]hough fear always seeks a thousand justifications, none is ever good enough, and the problems we run from only remain to haunt us.”
Shelby Steele (born 1946) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race In America (1991), p. 20
“I hate speaking in front of a large audience. I don't know where it came from...but its just this gut-wrenching fear of slipping up and doing something horrible.”
Leonardo DiCaprio (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The public takes care of their fear by thinking only crazies and stupid people wind up in cults. I've interviewed over 4000 ex-cult members. There's no one type of person who is vulnerable.”
Margaret Singer (1921–2003) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1997, as cited in Margaret Thaler Singer, The Lancet (31 January 2004)
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in our lousy genes. Or in the failure of one’s conquest of one’s self. The fault, dear Brutus, is in our fear of knowing ourselves.”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everybody should fear only one person, and that person should be himself.”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.”
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I fear the vermin that shall undermine Senate and citadel and school and shrine.”
Edwin Markham (1852–1940) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Vermin in the Dark, stanza 5, lines 1 and 2, in The Speaker (1911), volume 6, number 3, page 249.
“I should fear that the new Poland would suffer from the diseases through which the old Poland perished; that it would be a theatre of perpetual intrigues between Germany and Russia; and that its existence, so far from promoting the cause of European peace, would be a perpetual occasion of European strife.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memorandum, 'The Peace Settlement in Europe' (November 1916), quoted in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., F.R.S., Etc. 1906–1930 (London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1936), p. 325
“Without their tiger gods, the tribe declined into fear and melancholy and begged her to allow them to worship her instead, only to be rejected with contempt; for what good would their worship do her? she asked. It had done nothing for the tigers.”
Philip Pullman (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this situation, any feeling of gee-wiz exhilaration would be out of place. Consternation and fear would be closer to the mark; but the most appropriate attitude may be a bitter determination to be as competent as we can, much as if we were preparing for a difficult exam that will either realize our dreams or obliterate them.”
Nick Bostrom (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Psychoanalysis does not distort the truth by accident. It does so by necessity. It is an effective system for the suppression of the truth about childhood, a truth feared by our entire society. Not surprisingly, it enjoys great esteem among intellectuals... Fear of the truth about child abuse is a leitmotif of nearly all forms of therapy known to me.”
Alice Miller (psychologist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But who is there to help when all the "helpers" fear their own personal history? Bogus traditional morality, destructive religious interpretations, and confusion in our methods of childrearing all make this experience harder and hinder our initiative. Without a doubt, the pharmaceutical industry also profits from our blindness and despondency.”
Alice Miller (psychologist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A genuine relationship is possible only if both partners can admit their feelings, experience them and communicate them to each other without fear.”
Alice Miller (psychologist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[talking about word "homophobia":] I myself don´t like "gays" - and let me stress that I don't consider that word a synonym for "homosexual" - in the same way that I don't like Communists and Feminists as advocates of a harmful and stupid ideology. But have no fear of them.”
Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting, For fear of little men.”
William Allingham (1824–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not death therefore that is burdensome, but the fear of death.”
Ambrose (339–397) said by 397 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing as energizing, as confidence-building, as sustaining as the power of love. How substantial is its influence on the human mind and heart! How great and magnificent is its power in overcoming fear and doubt, worry and discouragement!”
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, Times Books. . (2000).
“It is not without fear and trembling that a historian of religion approaches the problem of myth. This is not only because of that preliminary embarrassing question: what is intended by myth? It is also because the answers given depend for the most part on the documents selected.”
Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (1969), p. 72
“The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.”
F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source