c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
It's all right to be afraid. You just don't let it stop you from doing your job.
— Jim Butcher, Fool Moon
In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.
— Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time
Give your enemy a face, If he is human, do not dehumanize him. Know him and know why he is your enemy. If your enemy is within you, understand what it is and why you are afraid. Put a face on your fear. When you understand it, and it is no longer vague and shapeless, you will find that your fear is no longer so formidable.
— Mercedes Lackey, Brightly Burning
We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.
— Terence McKenna
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.
— H.P. Lovecraft
I know what I'm capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.
— Pittacus Lore, The Rise of Nine
Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.
— H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls
When you teach them-teach them not to fear. Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant, pounding companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what you know is right.
— Christopher Paolini, Inheritance
People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles. This is the first thing I hear when I come back to the city. Blair picks me up from LAX and mutters this under her breath as she drives up the onramp. She says, "People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." Though that sentence shouldn't bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter. Not the fact that I'm eighteen and it's December and the ride on the plane had been rough and the couple from Santa Barbara, who were sitting across from me in first class, had gotten pretty drunk. Not the mud that had splattered on the legs of my jeans, which felt kind of cold and loose, earlier that day at an airport in New Hampshire. Not the stain on the arm of the wrinkled, damp shirt I wear, a shirt which looked fresh and clean this morning. Not the tear on the neck of my gray argyle vest, which seems vaguely more eastern than before, especially next to Blair's clean tight jeans and her pale-blue shirt. All of this seems irrelevant next to that one sentence. It seems easier to hear that people are afraid to merge than "I'm pretty sure Muriel is anorexic" or the singer on the radio crying out about magnetic waves. Nothing else seems to matter to me but those ten words. Not the warm winds, which seem to propel the car down the empty asphalt freeway, or the faded smell of marijuana which still faintly permeates Blaire's car. All it comes down to is the fact that I'm a boy coming home for a month and meeting someone whom I haven't seen for four months and people are afraid to merge.
— Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero
Fear makes idiots out of us all, at some time or other.
— Patricia Briggs, When Demons Walk
Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.
— Martin Amis, Other People
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.
— Bernard Beckett, Genesis
We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
— Erica Jong, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life
When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression.
— Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis
Karrin."She looked up at me. She looked very young somehow."Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick.""You'll get through it.""What if I don't?"I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She opened her eyes, a mix of anger and wary amusement easing into them in place of fear. "You do realize I'm holding a gun, right?
— Jim Butcher, Summer Knight
Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy... fear makes you always, always hold something back.
— Philip K. Dick, VALIS
Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless.
— Lao Tzu
We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.
— Jim Morrison
Fear is stronger than love, remember that. Fear is stronger than love, all that love I gave didn't mean nothing when it came to fear.
— Tupac Shakur
Fear always springsfrom ignorance.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
I feel keeping a promise to yourself is a direct reflection of the love you have for yourself. I used to make promises to myself and find them easy to break. Today, I love myself enough to not only make a promise to myself, but I love myself enough to keep that promise
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
What you are afraid of is never as bad as what you imagine. The fear you let build up in your mind is worse than the situation that actually exists.
— Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese?
Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!
— Frank Herbert, Dune
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
— Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.
— Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
If you are afraid to take a chance, take one anyway. What you don't do can create the same regrets as the mistakes you make.
— Iyanla Vanzant
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
— Aristotle
We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.
— Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
The fear of an unknown never resolves, because the unknown expands infinitely outward, leaving you to cling pitifully to any small shelter of the known: a cracker has twelve calories; the skin, when cut, bleeds.
— Caroline Kettlewell, Skin Game
If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered.
— Stephen King
Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.
— André Gide
Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate.
— James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
Sometimes good choices are really bad ones, wrapped up in so much fear you can't even see straight.
— Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming
Her eyes were those of someone who's just fallen in love, someone who sees nothing but her lover, someone who has no fear of anything. The eyes of someone who believes that every dream will come true, that reality will move if you just give it a push.
— Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep
Sometimes they threaten you with something - something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You WANT it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself.
— George Orwell, 1984
Fear can force obedience, but it can never transform a heart.
— Stacey Jay, Juliet Immortal
Some men are too dull to feel what might happen. Others torture themselves with maybes and populate their dreams with horrors more terrible than their worst enemy could inflict upon them.
— Mark  Lawrence, Prince of Thorns
People are supossed to aspire to become their fathers, not shudder at the thought.
— Veronica Roth, Allegiant
I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.
— Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale
Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.
— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.
— Anthony Robbins
Always remember the acronym for "FEAR" can mean one of two things: Fuck Everything And Run or Face Everything And Recover.
— Cupcake Brown, A Piece of Cake
Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.
— Jim Butcher, Dead Beat
Coraline shivered. She preferred her other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you cannot see.
— Neil Gaiman, Coraline
I was Ashallayn’darkmyr Tallyn, son of Mab, former prince of the Unseelie Court, and I was not afraid of a witch on a broom.
— Julie Kagawa, The Iron Knight
It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had a first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.
— Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons
I have not always chosen the safest path. I've made my mistakes, plenty of them. I sometimes jump too soon and fail to appreciate the consequences. But I've learned something important along the way: I've learned to heed the call of my heart. I've learned that the safest path is not always the best path and I've learned that the voice of fear is not always to be trusted.
— Steve Goodier
Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be.
— Carlos Castañeda, The Active Side of Infinity
Is there anything more frightening than people?
— Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Only those who have never known fear are allowed to think less of others for being afraid. Frankly, I think anyone who has never been afraid of anything in their entire life is either a liar or lacks imagination.
— Laurell K. Hamilton
Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.
— C.G. Jung
Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.
— Jean de La Fontaine
Do it badly; do it slowly; do it fearfully; do it any way you have to, but do it.
— Steve Chandler, Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be
Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear
— Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Fear is a good thing. It mean you're paying attention.
— Tamora Pierce, Page
This, she realizes, is the basis of all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.
— Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
Standing before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn that it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington’s house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.
— John Green, Paper Towns
Jude was good. But he let his fear and jealousy get to him." Daniel shrugged. "'Fear leads toanger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.
— Bree Despain, The Dark Divine
I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.
— Warren Buffett
A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us. 
— Pema Chödrön, The Places that Scare You
Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done—that's courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward.
— Piers Anthony, Castle Roogna
I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us!
— Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain
I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.
— Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
Find what you are afraid of, face it, and then you won't be afraid of it anymore.
— Marilyn Manson
When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins. At that moment, you will finally see the door of self acceptance opened.
— Shannon L. Alder
Fear is a weakness. It makes a person lose her nerve and her cool. It makes people jumpy and organizations nervous, and when that happens, there is always a chance to take advantage.
— Ally Carter, Uncommon Criminals
I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
The greatest fear dogs know is the fear that you will not come back when you go out the door without them.
— Stanley Coren
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
— William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830
A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.
— Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile
A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.
— bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool.]
— Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny.The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe.The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble getting angry.The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to its survival.A squirrel runs around looking for nuts, hiding from foxes, listening for predators, and watching for other squirrels. The squirrel does this because that's all it can do. All the squirrel has is a lizard brain.The only correct answer to 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' is 'Because it's lizard brain told it to.' Wild animals are wild because the only brain they posses is a lizard brain.The lizard brain is not merely a concept. It's real, and it's living on the top of your spine, fighting for your survival. But, of course, survival and success are not the same thing.The lizard brain is the reason you're afraid, the reason you don't do all the art you can, the reason you don't ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of the resistance.
— Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.
— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
Could be. I’m a pretty dangerous dude when I’m cornered.”“Yeah,” said the voice from under the table, “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.
— Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
I'm man enough to know when to scream.
— Obert Skye, Pillage
Fear could break a line faster than any enemy charge.
— Sarah J. Maas, Empire of Storms
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Child, child, love while you can The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man; Never fear though it break your heart-Out of the wound new joy will start; Only love proudly and gladly and well, Though love be heaven or love be hell.Child, child, love while you may, For life is short as a happy day; Never fear the thing you feel-Only by love is life made real; Love, for the deadly sins are seven, Only through love will you enter heaven.
— Sara Teasdale
The best thing—in Shadow's opinion, perhaps the only good thing—about being in prison was a feeling of relief. The feeling that he'd plunged as low as he could plunge and he'd hit bottom. He didn't worry that the man was going to get him, because the man had got him. He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, because yesterday had brought it.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
my imagination persisted in sticking horrors into the dark- so I stuck my imagination into the dark instead, and let it look out at me.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants.
— Kendare Blake, Anna Dressed in Blood
Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.
— Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
I think that most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears.
— Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Everyone gets scared at times. It's only the fools who won't admit it.
— Jennifer A. Nielsen, The Runaway King
Do not allow yourself to be blinded by fear and anger. Everything is only as it is.
— Yuki Urushibara
She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build laughter out of inadequate materials....She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall.
— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
She knew that was not an honest prayer, and she did not linger over it. The right prayer would have been, Lord . . . I am miserable and bitter at heart, and old fears are rising up in me so that everything I do makes everything worse.
— Marilynne Robinson, Home
The light of a new day always chases the shadows of the night away, and shows us that the shape of our fears is only the ghost of our own minds.
— Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule
When you were in love, you knew no fear or hatred. When you were fearful, there was no possibility of love or hate. And when there was hate, there was only hate.
— Christopher Pike, The Last Vampire
But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him the horror was that he might also be wrong.  
— George Orwell, 1984
We have nothing to fear but fear itself," Otto replied. "Oh, and a megalomaniacal headmaster, the world's deadliets assassin, giant mutated plant monsters, an international cartel of supervillains, and the security forces of every country on earth, but other than that...just fear.
— Mark Walden, The Overlord Protocol
After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.
— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Fear motivates, more than love or ambition or joy. Fear is more powerful than anything else in the world. I have spent so long yearning for things—for love, for acceptance—that I do not really need. I need nothing except the submission that comes with fear. I do not know why it took me so long to learn this.
— Marie Lu, The Rose Society
If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear.
— Ivo Andrić
Courage is about learning how to function despite the fear, to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at your to fight or flee - and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do.
— Jim Butcher, Ghost Story
There is always danger for those who are afraid.
— George Bernard Shaw
People always fear what they don't understand, Evangeline. History proves that.
— Libba Bray, The Diviners
Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
— Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
...What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That's the world, and we all live there.
— William Stafford
Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.
— Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Fear is the worst kind of grave, because it buries one alive.
— Beth Fantaskey, Jessica Rules the Dark Side
Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.
— Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
— Winston S. Churchill, Blood, Sweat and Tears
Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.
— Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart
I am very frustrated by fear of imagination, I don’t think that’s healthy.
— J.K. Rowling
I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your foot
— Nadia Comaneci
I turned to look into his face one last time. It was as if I could see the whole universe in his eyes. Maybe he was God, maybe he was simply enlightened. I didn't care right then, in that blessed moment, I just loved him. Later, though, the love was to turn to hate, to fear. They seemed so opposite, the feelings, yet they were all one note on his flute.
— Christopher Pike, The Last Vampire
Fear," the doctor said, "is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway.
— Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
It's a fact that people are afraid of what they don't understand. And most are too lazy or ignorant to find out more.
— Richelle Mead, Silver Shadows
Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of.
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked.
— Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
A fine line separates the weary recluse from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter misanthrope.
— Dean Koontz, Velocity
I did it," I gasp, still reeling from the thrill and the fear. "I really-" Quince's mouth is on mine in an instant. His arms around my waist, mine around his neck. It's the fear, i know it's the fear. And the bond. And the adrenaline. That whole i-was-this-close-to-death-and-really-really-really-glad-to-be-alive emotional response. Anxiety and relief and joy swirl between us until i can't tell which are his and which are mine. I can't not be kissing him right now. The urgency in his kiss tells me he feels the same.
— Tera Lynn Childs, Forgive My Fins
All the energy of their frustration and fear going into their laughter.
— Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream
Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.
— Mel Brooks
Voldemort is playing a very clever game. Declaring himself might have provoked open rebellion. Remaining masked has created confusion, uncertainty, and fear.
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Bravery is not the absence of fear but the forging ahead despite being afraid
— Robert Liparulo, House of Dark Shadows
But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord.""It might to keep it open.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Most people want to be circled by safety, not by the unexpected. The unexpected can take you out. But the unexpected can also take you over and change your life. Put a heart in your body where a stone used to be.
— Ron Hall
Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room. The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.
— Rabindranath Tagore
When you're scared - and I mean really scared, not just hearing a noise in the night, or standing toe to toe with someone twice your size who wants to pound you into the earth - it feels as if you're being injected with darkness. It's like black water as cold as ice settling in your body where your blood and marrow used to be, pushing every other feeling out as it fills you from your feet to your scalp. It leaves you with nothing.
— Alexander Gordon Smith, Solitary
The day before me is fraught with God knows what horrors.
— John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.
— Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith
Arrogance is someone claiming to have come to Christ, but they won't spend more than five minutes listening to your journey because they are more concerned about their own well being, rather than being a true disciple of Christ. Blessed is the person that takes the time to heal and hear another person so they can move on.
— Shannon L. Alder
You shouldn't have asked," I said. "Love doesn't ask many questions, because if we stop to think we become fearful. It's an inexplicable fear; it's difficult even to describe it. Maybe it's the fear of being scorned, of not being accepted, or of breaking the spell. It's ridiculous, but that's the way it is. That's why you don't ask-you act. As you've said many times, you have to take risks.
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Don’t turn your face away. Once you’ve seen, you can no longer act like you don’t know.Open your eyes to the truth. It’s all around you.Don’t deny what the eyes to your soul have revealed to you.Now that you know, you cannot feign ignorance.Now that you’re aware of the problem, you cannot pretend you don’t care.To be concerned is to be human.To act is to care.
— Vashti Quiroz-Vega
At the heart of the matter is a battle between wish and fear. Fear generally proves stronger than a wish, but it leaves a taste of disappointment on the tongue.
— George Packer
Fear sucks. Because you never know when it will attack. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you, giggling like your best girlfriend from seventh grade. Then it whacks you on the back of the head, takes you straight to your knees before you realize what hit you. Other times you can see it coming, just a dot on the horizon, but you're like a canary in a cage. All you can do is hang in there and hope you don't get motion sickness and puke all over the newspapers.
— Jennifer Rardin, Once Bitten, Twice Shy
In her presence, I was reminded again of why I was an anoretic: fear. Of my needs, for food, for sleep, for touch, for simple conversation, for human contact, for love. I was an anoretic because I was afraid of being human. Implicit in human contact is the exposure of the self, the interaction of the selves. The self I'd had, once upon a time, was too much. Now there was no self at all. I was a blank.
— Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
I hurt myself,” Syren bit out. “I make myself bleed and it feels good. It eases the pressure inside me, but it never lasts for long.” His lips trembled. “Before I slept in your bed, I’d never had a full night’s sleep. Before I crawled into your arms I’d never been safe.” He shuffled forward. “You give me that. You hold that power and you can take it away.
— Avril Ashton, A Sinner Born
It’s okay to be crazy and scared and brave at the same time!
— Kelly Epperson
Imagine not being frightened by any feeling. Imagine knowing that nothing will destroy you. That you are beyond any feeling, an state. Bigger than. Vaster than. That there is no reason to use drugs because anything a drug could do would pale in comparison to knowing who you are. To what you can understand, live, be, just by being with that presents itself to you in the form of the feelings you have...
— Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.
— Epictetus
The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame.
— Kohta Hirano, Hellsing, Vol. 01
Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that is no longer exists, continuing to fear and avoid dangers that, although once real, have not been real for a long time.
— Alice  Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
BEFRIENDING THE BODY Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.In my practice I begin the process by helping my patients to first notice and then describe the feelings in their bodies—not emotions such as anger or anxiety or fear but the physical sensations beneath the emotions: pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling, caving in, feeling hollow, and so on. I also work on identifying the sensations associated with relaxation or pleasure. I help them become aware of their breath, their gestures and movements.All too often, however, drugs such as Abilify, Zyprexa, and Seroquel, are prescribed instead of teaching people the skills to deal with such distressing physical reactions. Of course, medications only blunt sensations and do nothing to resolve them or transform them from toxic agents into allies. The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.
— Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The fear of losing each other is always stronger than the pain we cause.
— Krista Ritchie, Addicted to You
Your fear remains strong. You are not ready to face your story, preferring instead to surround yourself with knots. Someday, they will strangle you.
— Maria V. Snyder, Magic Study
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
— Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
The point was to learn what it was we feared more: being misunderstood or being betrayed.
— Adam Levin, The Instructions
Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear
— Stephen King, The Stand
But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still to be met.
— Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it.
— Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
We fear what we most desire.
— Harley King, What I Was Meant To Forget
The visions are fragmented and a dark cloud spreads like spilt ink across the pages of possible futures.
— Garth Nix, Lirael
Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.
— Aesop
It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't.
— Ernest Hemingway
We all have the capacity to find the will to do what must be done - even when that which we must do terrifies us most. Remember this.
— Jessica Shirvington, Enticed
But fear doesn't need doors and windows. It works from the inside.
— Andrew Clements, Things Not Seen
The worst dream of the night, when you are parted from someone you love and you do not know exactly where he is, but you know that he is in the presence of danger. You are tormented by a desire to keep the one you love safe.
— Whitney Otto, How to Make an American Quilt
-there was something in her, something that was...pure horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes, Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from.
— John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In
It may be that the fear contains information. Something can be interesting if you get to the other side of that fear.
— Craig Ferguson
Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcomeself-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before anaudience?"Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that somehorses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at thethundering cars, while just ahead at the next railroad crossing afarmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse asthe train goes by?How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze him in aback-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines orautomobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently seethe machines?Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness andfear: face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attainfreedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may giveyou excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in thewater, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangleand be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless"bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swimin them. To plunge is the only way.
— Dale Carnegie, The Art of Public Speaking
Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights,” she said, shimmying along the edge.“Not heights,” he murmured. “Just falling.
— Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song
She was a dead girl having the worst panic attack shed ever had. Not because she was afraid of dying, but because she knew that she would never live again.
— Tonya Hurley, Ghostgirl
That was how it was, sometimes. You put yourself in front of the thing and waited for whatever was going to happen and that was all. It scared you and it didn't matter. You stood and faced it. There was no outwitting anything. When Almondine had been playful, she had been playful in the face of that knowledge, as defiant as before the rabid thing. Sometimes you looked the thing in the eye and it turned away. Sometimes it didn't.
— David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid.""What do you think?" his father asked.Bran thought about it. "can a man still be brave if he's afraid?""That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him.
— George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
One day, as Sarita tended to the wash, Gemma played in the garden. She was a knight, you see, with a sword fashioned out of wood. Most formidable, she was, though I didn't quite know how formidable. As I sat in my study, I heard screaming from outside. I ran to see what the commotion was. Sarita called to me, wide-eyed with fear, "Oh, Mr. Doyle, look- over there!" The tiger had entered the garden and was making his way toward where our Gemma frolicked with her wooden sword. Beside me, our house servant, Raj, drew his blade so stealthily it seemed to simply appear in his hand by magic. But Sarita stayed his hand. "If you run for him with your life, you will provoke the tiger," she advised. "We must wait."...I must tell you that it was the longest moment of my life. No one dared move. No one dared draw a breath. And all the while, Gemma played on, taking no notice until the great cat was upon her. She stood and faced him. They stared at one another as if each wondered what to make of the other, as if they sensed a kindred spirit. At last, Gemma placed her sword upon the ground. "Dear tiger," she said. "You may pass if you are peaceful." The tiger looked at the sword and back at Gemma, and without a sound, it passed on, dissappearing into the jungle."..."The tiger had gone. He did not come around a gain. But I was a man possessed. The tiger had come too close, you see. I no longer felt safe. I hired the best tracker in Bombay. We hunted for days, tracking the tiger to the mountains there. We found him taking water from a small watering hole. He looked up but he did not charge. He took no notice of us at all but continued to drink. "Sahib, let us go," the boy said. "This tiger means you no harm." He was right, of course. But we had come all that way. The gun was in my hand. The tiger was before us. I took aim and shot it dead on the spot. I sold the tiger's skin for a fortune to a man in Bombay, and he called me brave for it. But it was not courage that brought me to that; it was fear..."But you," he says, smiling with a mix of sadness and pride, "you faced the tiger and survived."..."The time has come for me to face my tiger, to look him in the eye and see which of us survives." - Mr. Doyle
— Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
Divorce lawyers stoke anger and fear in their clients, knowing that as long as the conflicts remain unresolved the revenue stream will keep flowing.
— Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
Fear separates--makes us feel alone--disconnected--while love--love does just the opposite--it unites. {shadowland}
— Alyson Noel
What he was scared of was not that maybe she was a creature who survived by drinking other people's blood. No, it was that she might push him away.
— John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In
It's better to be loved than feared, but if you can't be loved, then fear will do.-Dino quoting Machiavelli
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Bullet
Early sign of getting lost is fear.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Our biggest fear is not in expressing the truth but that we will be attacked or belittled because of our truth.
— Kelli Wilson, The Clutter Breakthrough: Your Five-Step Solution to Freedom from Clutter Forever
Fear and realisation of ignorance, strong medicines against stupid pride.
— Garth Nix, Sabriel
Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.
— Jay McInerney
This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
Our critics make us strong!Our fears make us bold!Our haters make us wise!Our foes make us active!Our obstacles make us passionate!Our losses make us wealthy!Our disappointments make us appointed!Our unseen treasures give us aknown peace!Whatever is designed against us will work for us!
— Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes
Fear can be a potent aphrodisiac.
— Kele Moon, Beyond Eden
True saddness is when someone still thinks your the same person after all these years. They brand you because of their own ego, fear and lack of spirituality. What's sadder is when they are Christian.
— Shannon L. Alder
It is a very strange sensation to inexperience youth to feel itself quite alone the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed, and still I was alone.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.
— Veronica Roth, Divergent
Most of us are imprisoned by something. We're living in darkness until something flips on the switch.
— Wynonna Judd
If you have no faith in yourself, then have faith in the things you call truth. You know what must be done. You may not have courage or trust or understanding or the will to do it, but you know what must be done. You can't turn back. There is now answer behind you. You fear what you cannot name. So look at it and find a name for it. Turn your face forward and learn. Do what must be done.-Deth to Morgon, Prince of Hed-
— Patricia A. McKillip, The Riddle-Master of Hed
Humor can make a serious difference. In the workplace, at home, in all areas of life – looking for a reason to laugh is necessary. A sense of humor helps us to get through the dull times, cope with the difficult times, enjoy the good times and manage the scary times.
— Steve Goodier
One of the fears of having too much work is not having time to observe. And once you get recognised, there is nowhere for you to look any more. You can't sit on a night bus and watch it all happen.
— Benedict Cumberbatch
Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn.
— Marianne Williamson
The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. "Even though I complain sometimes," it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I was so afraid of wanting too much that I couldn't trust her handing me a shot at getting it. I don't want to be that senselessly fearful ever again.
— Tammara Webber, Where You Are
Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.
— Bernard of Clairvaux
We can’t be trapped by fear. Lives lived within such walls are just slower deaths.
— Mark  Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
— Dorothy Bernard
Although you hadn't asked why, it had less to do with you not noticing than with you not wanting to hear the answer.
— Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
I fear being alone more than anything else. So why do I do this? Why do I push away the people I love? What is so very wrong with me?I don’t know.And I don’t know how to make it stop.
— Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword
Both sides so blinded by their fear and hate of each other that they couldn't see they were all fighting for the same thing.
— Brom, The Child Thief
The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever.
— Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed.
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
There is nothing more liberating than having your worst fear realized.
— Conan O'Brien
You know that thing about Death Be Not Proud? Well, Fear Be Not Proud either. And Fear Be Not Elegant. What Fear be is stumbling, bumbling flight, crashing through brush, slip-sliding on pine needles, sloshing through puddles that are always deeper than you expect.
— Josh Lanyon, Somebody Killed His Editor
If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you'll find you've done it.
— George Bernard Shaw