c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
So now i know. I fear the unknown so deeply that I'de rather repeat the same heart-breaking pattern than face something or someone i can't predict.
— Valerie Frankel, The Girlfriend Curse
Oh, Myr," he chokes out. "I hate having to ask this of you..."He glances towards the car again, and I crouch down in the shadows, hoping it's too dark for him to see whether the window is open or closed. The woman pats his arm, cradling her hand against his elbow."You know I'd do anything for you and Hil," she says. I like her voice. It's throaty and rich."You'd do anything?" my father repeats numbly. "Even now? After -?""Even now," the woman says firmly.
— Margaret Peterson Haddix, Double Identity
Mind easily mesmerized when frightened.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Scarlett, I don't know just when it was that the bleak realization came over me that my own private shadow show was over. Perhaps in the first five minutes at Bull Run when I saw the first man I killed drop to the ground. But I knew it was over and I could no longer be a spectator. No, I suddenly found myself on the curtain, an actor, posturing and making futile gestures. My little inner world was gone, invaded by people whose thoughts were not my thoughts, whose actions were as alien as a Hottentot's. They'd tramped through my world with slimy feet and there was no place left where I could take refuge when things became too bad to stand. When I was in prison, I thought: When the war is over, I can go back to the old life and the old dreams and watch the shadow show again. But, Scarlett, there's no going back. And this which is facing all of us now is worse than war and worse than prison—and, to me, worse than death.... So, you see, Scarlett, I'm being punished for being afraid.
— Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
[T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes. (16)
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. 
— Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims? 
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
That is why in adult life, people generally tend to relive rather than live, that is, to repeat the patterns of the past and defend the primary fantasy in the defiance, and avoid the real gamble or real adventure of taking a chance on something new. They are afraid that if they really cry out, if they really ask, if they really scream for help, that it won't come, and they'll be in the same panicky frightened state they were in when they were little. 
— Robert W. Firestone
This book is a memoir - not of specific life events, but of the processes of dissociation, and of re-enlivening emotions that are shameful to admit or even to feel. It is an account of the altered states that trauma induces, which make it possible to survive a life-threatening event but impair the capacity to feel fear, and worse still, impair the ability to love. (292)
— Jessica Stern, Denial: A Memoir of Terror
Relate to the fear, not just from it. (50)
— Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
...as you know, I don't believe in fear, just an invention by men so they get all the money and good jobs...
— Marian Keyes, Anybody Out There?
Let it be considered that what is more wholesome than any particular belief is integrity of belief and that to avoid looking into the support of any belief from a fear that it may turn out rotten is quite as immoral as it is disadvantageous. 
— Charles Sanders Peirce
... from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.
— Bernard Beckett, Genesis
Fear, if not accompanied by pain, turns into a habit
— Brian McNaughton
When I was fifteen, a companion and I, on a dare, went into the mound one day just at sunset. We saw some of those Indians for the first time; we got directions from them and reached the top of the mound just as the sun set. We had camping equiptment with us, but we made no fire. We didn't even make down our beds. We just sat side by side on that mound until it became light enough to find our way back to the road. We didn't talk. When we looked at each other in the gray dawn, our faces were gray, too, quiet, very grave. When we reached town again, we didn't talk either. We just parted and went home and went to bed. That's what we thought, felt, about the mound. We were children, it is true, yet we were descendants of people who read books and who were, or should have been, beyond superstition and impervious to mindless fear.
— William Faulkner, Collected Stories
There is, after all, no moral difference between the bigot and the tolerator. They are from case to case positive or negative. One man is bigoted because he was given the sword of truth, another because he is angered in thoughtlessness; then, one man is tolerant because he was given the flag of peace, another because he is cowardly and wishes to hide all guilt.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
And how do you explain to your wife that you don't have all the answers, and that you might not know what you are doing, and that you are afraid you are going to fail? How do you admit that you are most afraid that, one day, she'll walk - and replace you with an educated, professor-type guy, who shares her same interests, schedule, and the way she was used to living, especially when all of your friends, your business associates, even your own damned brother, are all just waiting for you to mess up so they can have a shot at taking her away from you? How do you look the woman you love in her eyes and tell her that?
— Leslie Esdaile, Love Notes
The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up.
— Pam Houston, Waltzing the Cat
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always enjoyed feeling afraid. I think it is the most delicious feeling there is
— Domingos Monteiro
Choice is the basis of every part of your existence, but so is fear. The difference is, choice creates movement, where fear limits movement.
— Réné Gaudette
It had nothing to do with whether the water was frightening, or whether he was able to swim or not. No matter how fast he swam, there was something hidden in the water that he couldn't escape from. Even if it looked like it was sleeping, it could wake up at any time and come to attack him. Fear of this hidden thing, fear of the shadows, all of these frightened feelings lived in Makoto's heart.
— Kouji Ouji, ハイ☆スピード！ [High Speed!]
We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.
— Ford Madox Ford
Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand.
— Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.
— William S. Burroughs, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
Write down 10 things you would do in your life if you had absolutely no fear. Then pick one of them and do it.
— Steve Chandler, Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be
Dad, will they ever come back?""No. And yes." Dad tucked away his harmonica. "No not them. But yes, other people like them. Not in a carnival. God knows what shape they'll come in next. But sunrise, noon, or at the latest, sunset tomorrow they'll show. They're on the road.""Oh, no," said Will."Oh, yes, said Dad. "We got to watch out the rest of our lives. The fight's just begun."They moved around the carousel slowly."What will they look like? How will we know them?""Why," said Dad, quietly, "maybe they're already here."Both boys looked around swiftly.But there was only the meadow, the machine, and themselves.Will looked at Jim, at his father, and then down at his own body and hands. He glanced up at Dad.Dad nodded, once, gravely, and then nodded at the carousel, and stepped up on it, and touched a brass pole.Will stepped up beside him. Jim stepped up beside Will.Jim stroked a horse's mane. Will patted a horse's shoulders.The great machine softly tilted in the tides of night.Just three times around, ahead, thought Will. Hey.Just four times around, ahead, thought Jim. Boy.Just ten times around, back, thought Charles Halloway. Lord.Each read the thoughts in the other's eyes.How easy, thought Will.Just this once, thought Jim.But then, thought Charles Halloway, once you start, you'd always come back. One more ride and one more ride. And, after awhile, you'd offer rides to friends, and more friends until finally...The thought hit them all in the same quiet moment....finally you wind up owner of the carousel, keeper of the freaks...proprietor for some small part of eternity of the traveling dark carnival shows....Maybe, said their eyes, they're already here.
— Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
Fear was about possibilities. Not things that happened. Things that might.
— Michael  Grant, Fear
Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.
— Mark Twain
Life is a movement, a constant movement in relationship; and thought, trying to capture that movement in terms of the past, as memory, is afraid of life.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Flight of the Eagle
When you explore your fears then you set yourself free.
— Stephen Richards, Releasing You from Fear
Remember that the choices you make, and the reasons you make them, shape your destiny. Remember your free will...And remember, what the True One has made is supposed to bring balance and unity, not anger, fear or revenge. Do not fear, what is yours to use. Only beware the ends to which it is turned, and know the means will truly determine the outcome.
— Derek Donais, MetalMagic: Talisman
Courage is a decision you make to act in a way that works through your own fear for the greater good as opposed to pure self-interest. Courage means putting at risk your immediate self-interest for what you believe is right.
— Derrick A. Bell, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth
It is of men, and of them only, that one should always be frightened.
— Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night
Did I never explain to you about love, Reva?' Pa asked. I gave him a look, and he laughed uncomfortably. 'I guess not. Let me put it in a way you'll understand. Love is like stinging nettles. Only they prick from the inside out, starting at your heart and bursting on around. It's worse when it gets here'--he rubbed the bridge of his nose--'then your vision goes a little strange. But eventually the nettles stop stinging--once she agrees to kiss you. But they start right back up again when she agrees to marry you--''Pa,' I interrupted, 'that's not love, that's fear.'Pa shook his head, looking off admiringly in the direction where Lacrimora had disappeared. 'Same thing, in my case.
— Merrie Haskell, The Princess Curse
Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.
— L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs
You were talking about the wind," the Fillyjonk said suddenly. "A wind that carries off your washing. But I'm speaking about cyclones. Typhoons, Gaffsie dear. Tornadoes, whirlwinds, sandstorms... Flood waves that carry houses away... But most of all I'm talking about myself and my fears, even if I know that's not done. I know everything will turn out badly. I think about that all the time. Even while I'm washing my carpet. Do you understand that? Do you feel the same way?
— Tove Jansson, Tales from Moominvalley
When you have mastered fear then you have mastered all.
— Stephen Richards, Releasing You from Fear
What she wants to say has to do not only with joy but with the penetrating, constant fear that is joy's other half.
— Michael Cunningham, The Hours
Love opens your heart, trumps fear, and paves the way for healing in all aspects of your life.
— Lissa Rankin, Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself
That black, maddening firmament; that vast cosmic ocean, endlessly deep in every direction, both Heaven and Pandemonium at once; mystical Zodiac, speckled flesh of Tiamat; all that is chaos, infinite and eternal. And yet, it's somehow the bringing to order of this chaos which perhaps has always disturbed me most. The constellations, in their way, almost bring into sharper focus the immensity and insanity of it all - monsters and giants brought to life in all their gigantic monstrosity; Orion and Hercules striding across the sky, limbs reaching for lightyears, only to be dwarfed by the likes of Draco, Pegasus, or Ursa Major. Then bigger still - Cetus, Eridanus, Ophiuchus, and Hydra, spanning nearly the whole of a hemisphere, sunk below the equator in that weird underworld of obscure southern formations. You try to take them in - the neck cranes, the eyes roll, and the mind boggles until this debilitating sense of inverted vertigo overcomes you...
— Mark X., Citations: A Brief Anthology
People who live life in fear of taking risks die without living it.
— Fola, The Seed
I find my greatest strength in wanting to be strong and my greatest bravery in deciding to be brave....If there's no feeling of fear then there's no need for courage.
— David Levithan
Clearly, all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is not unlike that of strong desire except that fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. (29)
— Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
Remember, the only thing to fear is Fear, and - well, don't even fear Fear, for he's a cowardly chap at the best, who will run if you show a brave front.
— William Walker Atkinson, Thought Vibration
I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
— J.K. Rowling, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe—I have thought since—I could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us. But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion, blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot of the house in the stone wall.
— H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Fear was the terrible secret of the battlefiled and could afflict the brave as well as the timid. Worse it was contagious, and could destroy a unit before a battle even began. Because of that, commanders were first and foremost in the fear suppression business.
— David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
Where your fear is,there is your task.
— C.G. Jung
What do you call yourself?" the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!"I wish I knew!" thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, "Nothing, just now.""Think again," it said: "that won't do."Alice thought, but nothing came of it. "Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?" she said timidly, "I think that might help a little.""I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on," the Fawn said. "I can't remember here."So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And dear me, you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Fear is a scavenger who feeds on the future; on what may be and what is possible, extending down the line of our lives.
— John Scalzi, The Sagan Diary
As we watched the soldiers and the Rambo disappear I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you. It turns you into a state of unfeeling.
— Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip
In order for a thing to be horrible it has to suffer a change you can recognize.
— Ray Bradbury, The October Country
Fear sits and smiles and is predatory, immobile and silent and serene; an observer who conserves his energy and is content to wait.
— John Scalzi, The Sagan Diary
Most of the time, if you treat people right, you don't have to be afraid of them.
— Kathy Kelly, Other Lands Have Dreams: Letters From Pekin Prison
Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.
— Keith Ablow, Denial
Sometimes, you feel like being watched from behind by someone.When you turned, it's just nothing, nobody, none,or only someone who's daydreaming and staring right through you.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
I’m always scared to death that I won’t do a role justice. But fear can be a great motivator.
— Hilary Swank
We juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity. I am afraid. I will taste fear until I die.
— Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye
This is how best to effect change. If you reiterate the same fears and the same sensible measures with proper augmentation enough times, even difficult decisions will begin to seem like the only justifiable solutions.
— Olli Jalonen
Odessans' worst fear is change, because what if we make a change and our situation gets worse?
— Janet Skeslien Charles, Moonlight in Odessa
Paranoia is transmissible from mind to mind, but it does not go by the route of reason. It can therefore change its rationalization while remaining essentially the same.
— William Nicholls, Christian Antisemitism
There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure ad moving on. Yet most people are stricken wth fear. They fear failure so much that they fail.
— Charles Bukowski
Drop the fear. What you fear most, can be a repeated theme in your life.
— Amit Ray, Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management
The secret to life is to have no fear. When you can let go of what others think about you, how something is going to turn out, or how your past will affect your future, then you are finally living life free.
— Shannon L. Alder
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
— Ferdinand Foch
Fear of vikings build castles.
— Charles Manson
Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
I concluded that the best thing for me and for those around me was to want nothing, to be enthusiastic about nothing, to be as unmotivated as possible, in fact, so that I would never again hurt anyone.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Deadeye Dick
We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and see our illusions die.
— W.H. Auden
At a time I used to think that in a world without guards people would walk differently from the way we do in our country. Where people are allowed to think and write differently, I thought, they will also walk differently.
— Herta Müller, The Land of Green Plums
Many people believe they know true darkness, but until it has been experienced it cannot be imagined. Without even a flicker of light, the mind begins to play tricks. There is a constant feeling that there is a wall before you, that you must stop. The eyes open as wide as they can, hungry for light. The only thing that helps is to shut them tight.
— Joseph R. Lallo, The Book of Deacon
Fear and doubt are major stampeders.
— Karen Marie Moning, Iced
Fear could paralyse. Action was the antidote.
— Ken Follett, Hornet Flight
You can't live in dread of something for long without beginning to crave it.
— Glen Duncan, The Last Werewolf
When you have fear then the world is a big place. When you have courage then the world shrinks.
— Stephen Richards, Releasing You from Fear
My life was pouring out my feet and seeping through cracks in the floor; yet still I knelt and did not move, for fear she'd let go my hands. Let me stay, I wanted to beg: Please don't make me go.
— Sonya Hartnett, Surrender
Being brave doesn't mean you're not scared.
— Neil Gaiman
And we've read scary books and watched scary movies and TV shows together. He's met monsters, ghouls, and demons on the page and on the screen. There's nothing like watching Anaconda with your best friend or lying in bed next to your mother reading Roald Dahl, because that way you get to explore dark stuff safely. You get to laugh with it, to step out on the vampire's dance floor and take him for a spin, and then step back into your life. When you make friends with fear, it can't rule you.
— Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
I'm frightend. Of us. I want to go home. O God I to go home." "It's was an accident," said Piggy stubbornly,"and that's that." He touched Ralph's bare shoulder and Ralph shuddered at the human contact.
— William Golding, Lord of the Flies
This guy sounds like all the bad guys from the last ten years of murder movies all rolled into one. Like he might be the worst of those books you have there. If he was real, and really like that, then I should arrest him, right?” Matthew asked, hoping he could show the boy that he would protect him, and he could tell him the truth now.“No, Deputy. Because he is real, and he is really like that, and you should run.
— Dennis Sharpe, First Boy
Make them fear you. Machiavelli said it nearly six hundred years ago, but it's still true. Every ruler should strive for his people to love him. But if they cannot love you, then make them fear you. Love is better, but fear will do the job.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Narcissus in Chains
Only the cruelest hunters set their traps with terror and trepidation.
— Nenia Campbell, Black Beast
Therefore, when we neglect to fear such a brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Damned
His cloak was his crowning glory; sable, thick and black and soft as sin.
— George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
He wore his fear on his skin for everyone to see.
— Richard Kadrey, Butcher Bird
Of all the questions I have asked my readers this is the most important: What would you do if you weren't afraid? When you finally give wings to that answer then you have found your life's purpose.
— Shannon L. Alder
Don't be afraid of the dark. Shine!
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
I always have a sense of trembling, but so does a compass, after all.
— Jerzy Kosiński
All Welsh knew was that he was scared shitless, and at the same time was afflicted with a choking gorge of anger that any social coercion existed in the world which could force him to be here.
— James  Jones, The Thin Red Line
The peculiarity of sunrise is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the night, and our laugh is always proportioned to the fear we have had.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
What would be frightening about me jumping out of the bush wearing a pig mask is not the sudden surprise, not me, and not the pig mask, but that the ordinary world had split open for a moment to reveal some possibility never previously considered.
— Peter Straub
We stand, when we are young, on the sunny slope among the pines, and look across an unknown country to the mountains. There are clouds, but they are edged with light. We do not fear as we dip into the valley; we do not fear the clouds. Thank God for the splendid fearlessness of youth. And as for older travelers whom the Lord has led over the hill and the dale, they have not been given the spirit of fear. They think of the way they have come since they stood on that bright hillside, and their word is always this: There are reasons and reasons for hope and for happiness, and never one for fear.
— Amy Carmichael
What makes you so dare to challenge me, kiddo?It ain't about you, Sir. I just wanna confront my fear.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary.She suddenly felt strong arms around her. She bent her head to bury it in Gary's shoulder, trembling in the darkness.Whimpering like a small animal in a trap, she pushed herself closer to him and said in a choked voice, "I'm so frightened!""I know, my love," the voice said. "I'm so sorry you were hurt."She felt herself being pulled up to him, his grip around her tight. It was a strange feeling in this pitch-black hallway, where not even the light of the moon cast any illumination. The lips she touched were cold and yet they responded to her with an unusual warmth. His hands massaged her back. Something, Melanie thought, was wrong with that. The hands were too smooth, not like a plastered wrist would feel."Gary?" she asked, backing away. She didn't trust what she couldn't see."My love," the voice whispered, "there is no need to fear now. I shall protect you from those who mean you harm.
— Clare McNally, Ghost House
I wouldn't give a tinker's damn for a man who isn't sometimes afraid. Fear's the spice that makes it interesting to go ahead.
— Daniel Boone
Fear is an inhibitor that has kept more people from fulfilling their destiny than any other one emotion.
— Tim LaHaye, Spirit-Controlled Temperament
I think fear is normal, Cade. Just don't let it win.
— Lisa Schroeder
Now everything was changed. She walked about with cautious, anxious steps, staring constantly at the ground, on the lookout for things that crept and crawled. Bushes were dangerous, and so were sea grass and rain water. There were little animals everywhere. They could turn up between the covers of a book, flattened and dead, for the fact is that creeping animals, tattered animals, and dead animals are with us all our lives, from beginning to end. Grandmother tried to discuss this with her, to no avail. Irrational terror is so hard to deal with. [p. 136]
— Tove Jansson, The Summer Book
Before one may scare the plain people one must first have a firm understanding of the bugaboos that most facilely alarm them. One must study the schemes that have served to do it in the past, and one must study very carefully the technic of the chief current professionals.
— H.L. Mencken
Hannah expected this to make her sob even more, but instead she found her tears drying up and her tummy growing warm. How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls? She understood now why her parents go so angry when they saw the result of bombers in the white hot streets of the Middle East, why men and women wailed in anger as well as grief as they lifted the limp bodies of children from the rubble. How dare they? No, she wasn't going to die like this, wrapped up like some helpless baby.
— Stephen M. Irwin, The Dead Path
If you can't sublimate your fear of mortality into sex with your best friend, what's it there for?
— Justin Taylor
The purity of intention repels fear.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Fear and love were sometimes the same thing both necessary unavoidable. Now she understood that it was okay to bleed if you know how to heal.
— Susan Wiggs, The You I Never Knew
... there's fear that keeps you safe, and fear that warns you, and then there's fear of another sort. The kind that makes you turn on your friends, that irises the world down to one frightened person.
— Margaret Ronald, Soul Hunt
I only fear danger where I want to fear it.
— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
We cannot play ostrich. Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work. In the chill climate in which we live, we must go against the prevailing wind. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust. We must dissent from a nation that has buried its head in the sand, waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly, and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.
— Thurgood Marshall
Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else.
— Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two
the one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything. 
— Charles de Foucauld
They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else.
— Richard Adams, Watership Down
Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another sentiment.Sebastopol by Leo Tolstoy
— Leo Tolstoy, Sebastopol in December
Being afraid is the worst sin there is.
— Jean-Paul Belmondo
There were dragons, in his dreams, as though some part of him knew the trials were not yet over, that there were battles yet to be fought. He slept fitfully, fidgeting, tossing and turning, groaning and crying out in his sleep.
— Barry Lyga, Lucky Day
She lived in fear of ifonic endings. (91)
— Anne Lamott, Crooked Little Heart
Fear's a box we grow used to, convince ourselves it's all the space we need, that we like its color, its smell, its protection. Comes a time to stop hiding, stop being afraid. If we don't break free of our boxes, our spirits' shrink, we shrink in every way imaginable. Oh, Grace, my friend, don't let fear, especially someone else's fear, prevent you from living your life.
— Joan Medlicott
Ignorance might be bliss, but it also has teeth.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Profound Living
My sister stood up, trembling, and I must admit that I expected her familiar sneer to have taken its usual place on her face. But all I could find there was unhappiness and fear. Fear of my reaction, perhaps. But when a person has lived a life like hers, a life of promiscuity, rootlessness, and substance abuse, resentment and fear tend to replace all reasonable and proper emotions, and the world becomes your enemy.
— J. Robert Lennon, Castle
I'm not brave,' Ava replied huskily. 'If you only knew how afraid I really am. Sometimes I think I am afraid of everything.' 'But isn't that what being brave is all about? Being afraid, but doing it anyway?
— Kate Forsyth, The Beast's Garden
Don't fear the unexpecred or you'll be locked in time.
— Ben Campbell, Kissing Freud
... the logic of supernatural horror [is] a logic founded on fear, a logic whose sole principle states: "Existence equals nightmare." Unless life is a dream, nothing makes sense. For as a reality, it is a rank failure..
— Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
He couldn't have pulled back the lock, they couldn't simply have climbed over the sides of the stall in all of three seconds, because those weren't the rules of the game.Theirs was the intoxication of the hunter, his the terror of the prey. Once they had actually captured him the fun was over and the punishment more of a duty that had to be carried out. If he gave up too early there was a chance they would put more of their energy into the punishment instead of the hunt.
— John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In
Scared people did scary things sometimes,
— Michael  Grant, Gone
Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in.
— Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
Stare at the dark too long and you will eventually see what isn’t there.
— Cameron Jace, Snow White Sorrow
Do you think courage means being fearless? Or daring? Courage, real courage, is taking three steps when it terrifies you.
— Catherine Anderson, Comanche Heart
Those who speak of progression but are afraid of change are self-repressed and therefore unable to reach any further than their eyes can already see.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
We never know how high we areTill we are called to rise;And then, if we are true to plan,Our statures touch the skies.The heroism we reciteWould be a daily thing,Did not ourselves the cubits warpFor fear to be a king.
— Emily Dickinson
Fear can't hurt you. When it washes over you, give it no power. it's a snake with no venom.
— Maureen Johnson, The Name of the Star
No churchmen, I notice. Of course not. What use have they for a world without irrational fear?
— Jonathan L. Howard, The Fear Institute
I needed something--the distraction of another life--to alleviate fear.
— Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park
You know what my father said about innocent clients? ... He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life ... He said there is no in-between with an innocent client. No negotiation, no plea bargain, no middle ground. There's only one verdict. You have to put an NG up on the scoreboard. There's no other verdict but not guilty."Levin nodded thoughtfully."The bottom line was my old man was a damn good lawyer and he didn't like having innocent clients," I said. "I'm not sure I do, either.
— Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer
...we confidently say that it's not worth trying to reach any conclusions merely because we decide to stop halfway along the path that would lead us straight to them.
— José Saramago, The Cave
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear but being resolutely minded in a just cause. 
— Plutarch
Fear and bigotry don’t need explaining. They simply are, like traffic jams and taxes.
— Eileen Wilks, Death Magic
Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid of love, I who love love?.. Why was I born without a skin, O God, that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be touched?
— Eugene O'Neill, The Great God Brown and Other Plays
These thrill seeker people doing extreme sports...they have a hideous accident, go through agonizing recovery, and then go back to that activity that nearly killed them...that's not facing your fear, that's embracing your stupidity.
— Kelli Jae Baeli, Immortality or Something Like It
Fear is the passion of slaves.
— Patrick Henry
One cannot spend one's entire life running into bathrooms when danger calls!
— Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
Philip says to fear me. Do you have any idea how afraid I am of him?
— Linnea Sinclair, Gabriel's Ghost
Everybody knows that. The missing step is always the next.
— Óscar Lopes
The more we talk about our troubles and our fears, the more life we breathe into them". HS/el
— Evinda Lepins, Back to Single
...and I was afraid because I knew I had outgrown my past before I could see a path to my future.
— Han Nolan, A Face in Every Window
It will seem to many persons very inconsistent with their ideas of the dignity of a spirit that they should appear and act in the manner I have described, and shall describe further; and I have heard it objected that we cannot suppose God would permit the dead to return merely to frighten the living, and that it is showing Him little reverence to imagine He would suffer them to come on such trifling errands, or demean themselves in so undignified a fashion. But God permits men of all degrees of wickedness, and of every kind of absurdity, to exist, and to harass and disturb the earth, whilst they expose themselves to its obloquy or its ridicule.
— Catherine Crowe, The Night Side of Nature
Fear is a sign to prepare yourself, not to stop.
— Eric Valli
We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.
— Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
And I saw that all my life I had known that this was going to happen, and that I'd been afraid for a long time, I'd been afraid for a long time. There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it had grown, it had grown gigantic; it filled me and it filled the whole world.
— Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark
He was afraid of touching his own wrist. He never attempted to sleep on his left side, even in those dismal hours of the night when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has.
— Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin
That's all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate.
— James M. Cain
Heroes are people who face down their fears. It is that simple. A child afraid of the dark who one day blows out the candle; a women terrified of the pain of childbirth who says, 'It is time to become a mother'. Heroism does not always live on the battlefield.
— David Gemmell, Dark Moon
The walls of the arch are covered with blood-red jellies that wink and glisten at me by the light of the moon. My father told me they were completely harmless. I don't believe him. Nothing is completely harmless.
— Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
I had nothing to fear from my father.Except his disappointment.Which was no small thing.
— Barbara Delinsky, Escape
Cruelty and fear shake hands together. An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.
— Honoré de Balzac
Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work. She wore a loose Mother Hubbard of gray cloth in which there had once been colored flowers, but the color was washed out now, so that the small flowered pattern was only a little lighter gray than the background. The dress came down to her ankles, and he strong, broad, bare feet moved quickly and deftly over the floor. Her thin, steel-gray hair was gathered in a sparse wispy knot at the back of her head. Strong, freckled arms were bare to the elbow, and her hands were chubby and delicate, like those of a plump little girl. She looked out into the sunshine. Her full face was not soft; it was controlled, kindly. Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman understanding. 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 and 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 up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone.
— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
I am the One, and I see all.But the blind man in Apartment 1-A is blind in many ways, as are all human beings, even those with functioning eyes. They are blind to their folly, to their ignorance, to their history, to the future that they will make for themselves. A future born of self-loathing.
— Dean Koontz, 77 Shadow Street
The sky is the limit only for those who aren't afraid to fly!
— Bob Bello, Sci-Fi Almanac, 2010
Sometimes it's just silent...No sound at all.'Does that scare you?'Chad nods. 'Why?' asks his father.'It's like something's waiting.
— Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
Fear causes the dog to bite and Roze was one bitch.
— Maria V. Snyder, Magic Study
Vinegar: that's what fear smells like.
— Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
He is a man, and he is afraid. This is not a good combination.
— Kristin Hannah, Home Front
What is it?Nothing. I had a bad dream.What did you dream about?Nothing.Are you okay?No.He put his arms around him and held him. It's okay, he said.I was crying. But you didnt wake up.I'm sorry. I was just so tired.I meant in the dream.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Fear that I was very different from everyone else. Fear that deep down inside I was a shallow fraud, that after the revolution or after Jesus came down to straighten everything out, everyone from hippies to hard-hats would unfold and blossom into the beautiful people they were while I would remain a gnarled little wart in the corner, oozing bile and giving off putrid smells.
— Mark Vonnegut, The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity
Is almost a good enough reason for fear ?
— Beth Revis, A Million Suns
I carefully lifted out of the pose and spoke up: "Uh, Fran? When I'm doing the pose (camel), I have this feeling in my chest, kind of a scary, tight feeling."Fran was adjusting someone across the room. She had a way of looking like a thoughtful seamstress when she made adjustments: an inch let out here, a seam straightened there, and everything would be just right. She might as well have had pins tucked between her lips and a tape measure around her neck. Without missing a beat or looking up she said, "Oh, that's fear. Try the pose again."Fear. I hadn't even known it was there.
— Claire Dederer, Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses
Another of the hard things about being in a war, grandchildren, is that although there are times of quiet when the fighting has stopped, you know you will soon be fighting again. Those quiet times give you the chance to think about what has happened. Some of it you would rather not think about, as you remember the pain and the sorrow. You also have time to worry about what will happen when you go into battle again.
— Joseph Bruchac, Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two
I understood about fear. And I knew better than anyone in that room what Mouse was capable of. But still I had been raised in a place where to show your fear was worse than cowardice. It was suicide, a sin.
— Walter Mosley, Black Betty
You'd have thought that after suffering such a loss nothing else would matter to her but that didn't seem to be how it worked. She was fearful about everything now. It was as if she had finally seen the awful power of fate, it's deviousness, the way it could wipe out in an instant the one thing you had been certain you could rely on, and now she was constantly looking over her shoulder, trying to work out where the next blow might fall.
— Mary Lawson, The Other Side of the Bridge
Mind doesn't work properly when taken intoa higher level where fear dominates the will.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Thousands of years ago, when our ancestors encountered a predatory animal like a lion, it was best to react immediately and not stand around thinking about the lion, admiring its beauty or wondering why it was bothering them instead of tracking down some tasty antelope. Thus, the fast track to the amygdala kept our ancestors alive.
— John B. Arden, Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life
Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy.
— G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
All my life,I've been afraid of things, as a child and a woman must be. I lied about it naturally. I fancied myself a witch and walked in dark streets to punish myself for my doubts. But I knew what it meant to be afraid.
— Anne Rice, Merrick
Fear of our own depths is the enemy.
— James Hollis, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife
...we, and I mean humans, are meaning makers. We do not discover the meanings of mysterious things, we invent them. We make meanings because meaninglessness terrifies us above all things. More than snakes, even. More than falling, or the dark. We trick ourselves into seeing meanings in things, when in fact all we are doing is grafting our meanings onto the universe to comfort ourselves. We gild the chaos of the universe with our symbols. To admit that something is meaningless is just like falling backward into darkness." (p184)
— Benjamin Hale, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore
Who is the brave man--he who feels no fear? If so, then bravery is but a polite term for a mind devoid of rationality and imagination.
— Geraldine Brooks, March
Surrender to your fear so you may triumph over it.Choose me,open you soul to me, and embrace the Devouring.
— Simon Holt, The Devouring
We can always count on people to hate and to fear.To harm one another and to be harmed.To kill and be killed.It is what opens the gate.
— Simon Holt, The Devouring
But human beings are like that, she thought. We've replaced nearly all our emotions with fear.
— Paulo Coelho
White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermingling of cultures unheard of in any other American city, South or North; although there has prevailed a most joyous and fascinating interface, black anger and white fear has persisted, providing the ongoing, ostensibly integrated fete champetre with volatile and sometimes violent idiosyncrasies.
— Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
Courage and fear were one thing too.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
They lurk in the cold and dark.Hungry and,wicked,they wait for their one chance to devour the weak on Sorry Night.Then the vours feast on a banquet of fear.Your fear.They steal your soul but your body remains.No one knows the difference.
— Simon Holt, The Devouring
You skin is so soft. Smells like…”She had to tilt him to get this other arm free and hated knowing how badly she was hurting him as she did so. “Sheer, unadulterated fear?
— Cherry Adair, Hush
To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades. Because we like the smell of danger. But, thought Hayduke, what about the smell of fear, Dad?
— Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang
When you've already broken the rules of the universe, fear becomes only a feeling of disconnection, distant.
— Jonas Samuelle
I thought of Shelley in the hospital, how she said sometimes sadness only looked like anger and judgment. Maybe fear did too.
— Holly Cupala, Tell Me a Secret