c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
A stink. A stench. A foulness in her mind, dreadful and unforgiving. A compost of horrible ideas and rotted thoughts that made her want to take our her brain and wash it.
— Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
The problem with fear, though, is that it isn’t any one thing. Fear has a whole taxonomy—anxiety, dread, panic, foreboding—and you could be braced for one form and completely fall apart facing another.
— Sebastian Junger, War
There is an evil creeping insideThe darkness has a firm hold on meThere is a desire burning withinAmbition seeks to replace the air I breatheThere is a voice, relentless voice in my headMy peace has abandoned meThere is nothing but lonelinessA hollow place I can't traceA void filled with nothing but space A sorrow with which no one can relateI'm just an innocent girl longing for tranquillityBut I'm fading awayFear has taken over me
— Evy Michaels
My dear cousin has a very odd relationship with fear -- though mostly she's too busy to be bothered with it.
— Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass
People have always looked to the horizon and feared that which they did not understand. Initially, this horizon was the edge of the forest. Then, when forests became better explored and their dangers were realized as not actually being that serious, human attention turned toward the darkness of the sea. Then the sea became better explored, and the new horizon became the vastness of space. And now, with space getting ever better explored, a new horizon appears. . . in the form of the horrors humanity is about to unleash on itself.
— Matt Kaplan
Remember, son, you're most afraid when you can think of no one but yourself.
— Donna Lynn Hess, A Father's Promise
No one conquers fear easily, Robert. It takes a brave heart to win great battles.
— Peter Bunzl, Cogheart
Fear is really quite tedious. She wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible.
— Jim Butcher, The Aeronaut's Windlass
That's all that brave means - not thinking about the dangers. Just thinking about what you must do. Of course you were frightened. I was too, today. But you kept your mind on what you had to do.
— Lois Lowry, Number the Stars
Fear ain't respect—how could I have ever thought it was?
— Peter Liney, In Constant Fear
The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies.
— George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie
He fell into a solemn silence, which he only eventually broke to say, “I think I’ve become a terrible person. In fact, I’ve become a reptile. Do you know that reptiles are stupid because almost their entire brain capacity is used to feel fear?
— Valeria Luiselli, The Story of My Teeth
Steel screams when it's forged, it gasps when it's quenched. It creaks when it goes under load. I think even steel is scared, son.
— Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
Fear is Real not superficial...if ignored will conquer you...if fought...it will be conquered.-Fear of drowning can only be overcome only by learning to swim.
— ketan r shah
Pay no attention to the terrors that visit you in the night. The psyche is at its lowest ebb then, unable to defend itself. The desolation that envelops you feels like truth, but isn't. It's just mental fatigue masquerading as insight.
— Jeffrey Eugenides, Fresh Complaint
You don't really love me, or you never would have treated me like you did. You were just afraid of letting me go. There’s a difference, and no one knows that better than I do. We were both afraid of moving on, me of what I really wanted. It brought us together, it bound us, but no longer. I am done with making decisions based on fear. [Nicholas to Grace]
— Emily Colin, The Memory Thief
From time to time, we all must go unto a landscape—be it inner or outer landscape—where there are no hiding places. Allowing the stark awe and silence to aid us in both communing and confronting the depth of ourselves. We fear emptiness because we know that within those places of nothingness we will come face-to-face with who we are and gaze into the internal mirror. But what is the alternative? Shall we go our entire life without hearing our own voice . . . without ever having met who we are when isolated from all?
— L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations
Yes, we live, or we're given the chance to, at least, but sometimes living is hard and complicated because of fear.
— Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End
In a polished surface of metal I happen to notice my reflected face; it wears a pale, beaten lonely look, eyes looking out at nothing with an expression of fear, frightened and lonely in a nightmare world. Something, I don’t know what, makes me think of my childhood; I remember myself as a schoolchild sitting at a hard wooden desk, and then as a little girl with thick, fair, wind-tossed hair, feeding the swans in a park. And it seems both strange and sad to me that all those childish years were spent in preparation for this – that, forgotten by everybody, with a beaten face, I should serve machinery in a place far away from the sun.
— Anna Kavan, Asylum Piece
A life that chooses not to grow is a life that died long before it ever lived.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
If you're scared, do something.
— Elizabeth Wein, The Pearl Thief
To spin the tale with great flourish but never live the tale is the power of vision strangled to fiction by the fiction of fear.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
It’s natural to avoid the things we fear. Seeking out what terrifies me seems insane on a certain level, but more and more, the longer I’m alive, I find myself drawn to my most intense feelings, both good and bad. It seems that they are screaming out to me for a reason and that I have to know what they’re trying to say.
— Page  Turner, Poly Land: My Brutally Honest Adventures in Polyamory
I do hate him. But I also love him. In the end, aren’t they the very same thing? Don’t they both take a back seat to what you fear?
— Hank Early, Heaven's Crooked Finger
As the saying goes, "Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." Why would I want to keep my limitations?
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Too often we make it more about what stands before us, and we miss all that stands within us.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
If you can’t beat fear, just do it scared.
— Glennon Doyle Melton
Selfishness comes from too little self-love, not too much, as we compensate for our lack. There's no such thing as caring for the self too much, just as there's no such thing as too much genuine affection for others. Our world suffers from too little self-love and too much judgment, insecurity, fear, and mistrust. If we all cared about ourselves more, most of these ills would disappear.
— Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing
Ignorance is my refusal to think outside the box of my fears.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
I start to count. This is the important part. I have to count right. Not too fast, nor too slow. All the way to one hundred. It must be spoken aloud, without interruption. Whispering is acceptable; the count keeps my wolf to the Dark Wood. It keeps me on safety’s slender path.
— Michael F. Stewart, Counting Wolves
Boredom is fear's patience. Fear doesn't want to exaggerate. Only on occasion--and fear considers this very important--does it want to know how things stand with me.
— Herta Müller, The Hunger Angel
But fear is no fit means to measure anyone, for fools have no fear, or so I've heard it said.
— Cameron Dokey, Kissed:  Once Upon A Time Omnibus Belle/Sunlight and Shadow/Winter's Child
All my life I have known fear. But I have acted in spite of it. I urge you to do the same. Your father used to say that it is preferable to die rather than to live fearing death.
— Karen Essex, Pharaoh
She’d passed the fear barrier, and she’d lived, and she’d discovered not certain death, as she’d imagined, but impossible splendor. What other beautiful things had fear been hiding from her? What else had the curse long kept her from discovering? For the first time in a long time, she wanted to find out.
— Krystal Sutherland, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares
The old fear was there, the grapnel anchor lodged in her chest, the thing that wanted to pull her back away from the edge and whisper no, no, no. Yet there was a new thing: a lure. Something down in the water thatwhispered yes, yes, yes. Go forward, onward, into the unknown. It felt like something between destruction and thrill
— Krystal Sutherland, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares
As she fell, Esther wasn’t worried about being blown off course and plummeting into the rocks below. She wasn’t worried about hitting the shallows and pin diving to the ocean floor and shattering her spine. She wasn’t even worried about Cthulhu. (Okay, maybe a little.) What she worried about was Eugene’s willingness to jump. The way he glanced down at the water far below and looked at it like it was home. The way he stepped lightly from the cliff’s edge, and the way he fell through the air faster than she did, dragged down by earth’s magnetic field. The way he flickered in the sunlight as he hit the water, the same way Tyler Durden flashed on-screen four times before you saw him solidly. Foreshadowing the twist to come. Eugene was afraid of demons, and monsters, and above all the dark, but he was not afraid of death. That scared her more than anything.
— Krystal Sutherland, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares
Esther supposed, as they held each other under a threadbare carpet of stars, that this was how it must always feel in the beginning. Yet even there, next to him, the most excellent person in the universe, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking that love was a pitcher plant. Sweet with nectar on the outside, but once you caught the scent and took the plunge, it ate you whole.Soul and all.
— Krystal Sutherland, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
— Frank Herbert, Dune I
Not until your heart and mind comes into a total agreement for the approval of your true purpose on earth, you shall least unleash your full energy and true strength to accomplish your true mission with enthusiasm and full tenacity.
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Your most important fight will be the ones that you knew knew couldn't win but you fought as hard as you could anyway.
— Brent M. Jones
Kill your fear, and start something! God needs people for greater works, but fear always tells them how dangerous it is to take a step!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Lupe would have a lot to say about this. I can almost hear her gravelly voice in my head. There is no hate without fear, she'd say. Hate is fear crystallized, fear objectified. We hate what threatens our selves, our dreams, our plans, our freedom, our place in the world, our place in the hearts of the people we love. We fear first. Then we hate.And I know what I would say to her in response. Lupe, I'd say. My troubles are just beginning.
— Paullina Simons, Lone Star
Fear is no crime. But acting from fear is. Know that you're going to lose everything one day, whether you fear to lose it or not.
— Adam Burch, Song of Edmon
Life is full of challenges. In the end, it's getting up that pulls us through the dark days. So we can admire the sunset.
— Azelene Williams, Broken Breaking the Silence
The greatest fear of my life turned into the most relaxation moment when I realized ‘I am not alone in this.
— Bhavik Sarkhedi
Life is full of challenges. In the end it's getting up that pulls us through the dark day's. So that we can admire the sunset
— Azelene Williams, Broken Breaking the Silence
It's strange how quickly the significance of of a certain smell can change, depending on what path it decides to take through the brain. It's strange how close love and fear live to each other.
— Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Phobologic discipline is comprised of twenty-eight exercises, each focusing upon a separate nexus of the nervous system. The five primaries are the knees and hams, lungs and heart, loins and bowels, the lower back, and the girdle of the shoulders, particularly the trapezius muscles, which yoke the shoulder to the neck.	A secondary nexus, for which the Lakedaemonians have twelve more exercises, is the face, specifically the muscles of the jaw, the neck and the four ocular constrictors around the eye sockets. These nexuses are termed by the Spartans phobosynakteres, fear accumulators.	Fear spawns in the body, phonologic science teaches, and must be combated there. For once the flesh is seized, a phobokyklos, or loop of fear, may commence, feeding upon itself, mounting into a “runaway” of terror. Put the body into a state of phobia, fearlessness, the Spartans believe, and the mind will follow.
— Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
We can become so cruel and so selfish when we are afraid.
— Anne Perry, Callander Square
If it is true, as God says, that we are as we think, we risk becoming what we most fear if our fear is stronger than our love.
— Ron Brackin
When some women felt fear, they covered it with an iron grate of courage, I thought. Men might be dangerous, but they were very often unperceptive. If fear only rumbled through a woman’s soul and glittered through her eyes, then perhaps the man she feared would not be aware it was there at all. He might even think that she was entirely confident, dauntless. He might believe her veneer of bravery.
— Kelsey Brickl, Paint
Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.
— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
You have dwelt overmuch upon pain. Pain is a swift distress; it ends and is forgotten. Without memory and fear pain is nothing, a contradiction to be heeded, a warning to be taken. Without pain what would life become? Pain is the master only of craven men. It is in man's power to rule it.
— H.G. Wells, The Undying Fire
Reality never comes as a problem. It is only the ideas about reality that comes as a problem.
— Osho, Fear: Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of Life
Renunciation is dropping the fear, anger, respect, and disrespect but continuously radiating unconditional love for everyone.
— Amit Ray, Peace Bliss Beauty and Truth: Living with Positivity
Face your fear and wipe your tears.
— Darhower J.M.
What is it that you want to do, or put out into this world that is greater than your fear?
— Eileen Anglin
What is it you want to do, to put out into the world, that is greater than your fear?
— Eileen Anglin
Life is a dance between what keeps us going and what is holding us back
— Sesan Kareem
When a man is standing at the top of a cliff, it isn’t fear of falling that keeps him rooted to the edge — it’s the fear of not being able to resist the desire to jump, just to see what falling feels like.
— Cristelle Comby, Russian Dolls
For those who challenge the great dangers fearlessly, let us remind this realistic probability: Fear can save your life and courage may kill you; thus sometimes fear is a reasonable path to continue your path!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
No one is born with fear: we learn it, create it, and perpetuate it. Therefore, fear's biggest secret is we also control it.
— Ken Poirot
We can be seized with panic of the fall, or inspired by the potential that lies within the fall.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
Fear has always been a very important whistleblower. Our emotion and our history can provoke fear that may arrest us at any time or at any place. Above and beyond, fear might be contagious and its scent, sometimes sensual, sometimes mystical or animal, can exude the musty and arcane smell of destiny. ("One could still feel the smell of fear" )
— Erik Pevernagie
The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the popular phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And the goad which drives it on thus eagerly is not an affectation for futurity Futurity does not exist, because it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seem to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is knocking at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley said, into the Street of By-and-Bye, where stands the Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to play with children, especially unborn children. The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as humanity. And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
— G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
Don't be afraid! Hold my hand and let's jump off that cliff together. 
— Ahmed Mostafa
Courage is not the absence of Fear, but the ability to act in spite of fear!
— Harrish Sairaman
I have to go. I have to be brave.
— Sofi Benitez, Dog Daze
Listen to the sadness,the echoes in my mind,the place where I usually hide,but now I cannot find.Why had it happened?What had I done?Where was I going?Now I'm on the run.Hiding from the echoes,the pounding in my ears,the beatings getting louder,it isn't death, I fear!
— Anthony T. Hincks
Fear produces action, but would never create followers
— Harrish Sairaman
Too often it’s about what stands before us, not what stands within us.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
...you have to keep things in perspective, even when you are in the middle if a personal crisis. Fear breeds fear and worry builds upon worry. You can't stop feelings of grief, remorse, guilt, anger, and fear that wash over you during difficult times, but you can recognize them as pure emotional responses, and then manage them so that they don't dictate your actions.
— Nick Vujicic, Unstoppable: The Incredible Power of Faith in Action
Let's not be afraid...there is always a step after the last step.
— Hubert Haddad, Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters
My life is too often driven by the fear of the next moment verses focusing on the privilege that I have the next moment.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
You push forward, you fight the demons, you keep moving. Fear tries to paralyze you, to keep you from moving. It stops success, it stops progress - when you do things afraid, you're still accomplishing your goals, only you're doing it knowing that you are truly conquering the Everest in your life.
— Rachel Van Dyken, Ruin
My whole life I've been telling myself, "don't be afraid". And it is only now that I'm realizing how stupid that is. Don't be afraid. Like saying, "don't move out of the way when someone tries to punch you" or "don't flinch at the heat of fire" or "don't blink". Don't be human. I'm afraid and you're afraid and we're all always going to be afraid, because that's the point. What I should be telling myself is "be afraid, but do it anyway". Live anyway.
— Unknown
My whole life I've been telling myself, "don't be afraid". And it is only now that I'm realizing how stupid that is. Don't be afraid. Like saying "don't move out of the way when someone tries to punch you" or "don't flinch at the heat of a fire" or "don't blink". Don't be human. I'm afraid and you're afraid and we're all always going to be afraid, because that's the point. What I should be telling myself is "be afraid, but do it anyway". Live anyway.
— Unknown
If a person cannot swim across the river, he must take the bridge. He is not afraid of the water or worried that he may drown. But he takes the bridge out of necessity. It is a fact. To fear or worry over necessities (over facts), stills the mind. The stagnant mind only focuses and refocuses on a single point, without peripheral vision—it ponders danger, but it does not prepare for it. The brave man is not bound immobile with caution or lost scouting the fog of hazard calculating insurmountable variables. His sight and sense is not hindered and he may confront danger upon its arrival. To be brave is not to be careless or headstrong, but to act without expectation.
— M.N. O’Brien
It's more that I want to leap in and say certain things and do certain things, but I always seem to hold myself back. I think a big part of me is afraid.
— Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Dr. Webb says that life is so full of complications and confusion that humans oftentimes find it hard to cope. This leads to people throwing themselves in front of trains and spending all their money and not speaking to their relatives and never going home for Christmas and never eating anything with chocolate in it.Life, he says, doesn't have to be so bad all the time. We don't have to be so anxious about everything. We can just be. We can get up, anticipate that the day will probably have a few good moments and a few bad ones, and then just deal with it. Take it all in and deal as best as we can.
— John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back
We rarely find answers in the distractions. But oh what possibilities live within the quiet of solitude.In my fear to be alone,I distracted myself away from the deep beauty of my own solitude.
— Scott Stabile
You have already lost if you are always fearful of losing everything.
— Kamand Kojouri
Tomorrow comes for those who fear itToday never ends for those who live it
— P.H. Wilson
It's good to be afraid," I said. "It means you still have something to live for.
— Kim Liggett, Blood and Salt
What is fear but that ‘thing’ that we believed to be as powerful as it pretended to be.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
And with a frenzied, frightened, anxious heart, she tumbled headfirst into the life she was destined to live.- Future
— Abby Rosmarin, No One Reads Poetry: A Collection of Poems
When you put yourself on the page, but it will never be good enough for anyone else, when your raw, bloody heart's smashed into letters and words and paragraphs--can't they see the gore still dripping? What more do they want?-- and none of it matters?
— Shveta Thakrar
I don’t have to let anyone use me. I don’t have to bend the truth. Even if I’m not ready to forgive just yet, I don’t have to be tied to my scars, to the people who wounded me, or to the anger and fear that grew out of it. I can be myself and be honest and not be afraid. Not of getting hurt or of hurting others.
— Ryan Galloway, Biome
Fear of dying brings humans the greatest pain. Death is implicit in every form of joy. Of course, it also brings the end of pain.
— Eliza Granville, Gretel and the Dark
Change is always a scary thing. We try to imagine various scenarios to prepare ourselves, like Jacob did with his hypotheticals. But when you find yourself in circumstances that you never thought possible, even if frequently imagined, when the consequences of those impossible, fantasy-tinted circumstances become real, it can be paralyzing.
— L.E. Flinders, The Wolves Within Our Walls
I’m not the author of my fears, but I sure feed them really well.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
You’re not going to always hit a home run in life. You’re going to strike out! You’re going to walk to the dugout of life, frustrated, while spectators chirp your name in judgment. They’re afraid to even get on the field, and you know it. The fact that you get back up there, unafraid, going after that next home run, makes you the person you are.
— Ron Baratono, The Writings of Ron Baratono
Truth is the greatest marketing campaign.
— Richie Norton
Whoever fear God, shall depart from evil.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Fear the sword of sin, it leads to death of the soul.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
How much your life sucks, or how awesome your life is, is really all determined by how much fear controls your life.
— Jellis Vaes
This is the true alchemy - the transformation of fear into love. It's available to all of us. It can save the world.
— Sparrow, Readers Write - The Sun
Steffy risked a glance at her fellow neighbors and townspeople. She often looked for kindred spirits in the crowd. None were ever found. Just once, she wished to see someone trying to hide a smile, a snicker, or plain sighing at the absurdity. The rowdy outcasts among the community were not welcome in the church. They knew better than to show their faces.
— Jaime Allison Parker
Compassion will lead you to extraordinary worlds your fear doesn't dare visit.
— Scott Stabile
We both keep quiet. Again.Today just seems like a day for it. It’s easier that way. You don’t have to say things you don’t want to say because once the words are out, you’ll have to confront them.Confront your insecurities. Confront your fears.Confront yourself. I think that one, the last one, is the hardest.
— Anna B. Doe, Lost & Found
How can we expect the world to change if we are unwilling to change ourselves? We hate the haters, judge the judgers, and refuse to forgive the supposed unforgivable. We are hypocrites, most of us, comfortable condemning others for the same things we do. Like sheep we follow, like wolves we attack, like fools we listen to the loudest voices, even when they scream nothing but hate. We are lost in our desire to be like everyone else, and paralyzed in our fear to be ourselves. We are desperate to feel safe amidst our cries for retaliation and more wars. Where is the common sense? If we want to end war, then be peaceful. If we want to know love, then stop hating. if we want to find happiness, then let go of negativity, and befriend gratitude. real change isn’t born from making the same choices over and over, especially choices muddied with insecurity and fear. we can’t wrest ourselves from darkness by turning out our light. everything just gets darker then. Let's worry less about changing the world and more about changing ourselves. That, we can do, each one of us. With commitment and work. And a single candle does wonders in even the darkest of nights.
— Scott Stabile
Stay away from people who don't know who they are but want you to be just like them. People who'll want to label you. People who'll try to write their fears on your face.
— Richard Peck, The Best Man
Maybe my greater fear should not be fear itself, but what I will lose should I submit to fear.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
We cannot let our hurts, fears, and prejudices get in the way of God’s calling for our lives.
— Teresa Schultz, The Bible In Poetry,
We help boost the devil’s ego whenever we exhibit that toxic act called FEAR.
— ANIKOR Daniel
Some of the worst places I've ever lived in were fear, pain, and shame. The cost of living was so high, your only choice was a slow death.
— Karishma Magvani
It was all about taking the leap of faith. It said that the fear that stops us from doing what we really want, is often not based on reality. We shape our fears in our heads, but things are so much easier than we think.
— Effrosyni Moschoudi, The Flow (book 2)
He was afraid of letting anyone know of his love, because if life had taught him anything, it was that love wasn’t a prize, it was a weapon. And he was so tired of being hurt.
— Brittainy C. Cherry, The Fire Between High & Lo
Brave the skeletons, darling.
— Emma Winters, Equal Parts
We all die. We don't have to live our lives fearing it.
— Claire North, The End of the Day
Fear is the paralyzing emotion that inhibits or restricts normal feelings of love, confidence, and well-being.
— Tim LaHaye, Transforming Your Temperament
Let the one in least fear, lead.
— Unknown
The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is.
— Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep
His is the same fear most everyone has, everyone for me for the fact that I cannot.
— K. Weikel, Building Monsters
I can’t bear the thought of oblivion, Asriel,” she continued. “Sooner anything than that. I used to think pain would be worse—to be tortured forever—I thought that must be worse . . . But as long as you were conscious, it would be better, wouldn’t it? Better than feeling nothing, just going into the dark, everything going out forever and ever?
— Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Hear folks talkin' about how some of us got the weight of the world on our shoulders? Fuck, maybe we do, but I'll hold onto it. At least it's somethin', you know?
— Pat Shand, Destiny, NY, Volume One: Who I Used to Be
It's a new world, sweetie. We build our own destinies.
— Pat Shand, Destiny, NY, Volume One: Who I Used to Be
...all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me...
— James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
We set our own limits on love. Some of us bind our hearts like Chinese women bind their feet. The binding is painful at first but eventually you get used to it and the pain goes away. The saddest part of all is that by binding yourself to the choices you make, you forget that there was ever another way to live.
— Kate McGahan
Do not let me hearOf the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
— T.S. Eliot, East Coker
The backward look behind the assuranceOf recorded history, the backward half-lookOver the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.
— T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
The more we're thrown into conflict with each other through engineered distrust, the less able we are to unite against those responsible.
— DaShanne Stokes
Do not fear of ARREST. Why? Because, there is REST at the end of each AR"REST"; either in jail or in the grave. The wisest and the greatest of men are aware of this.
— Opoong Amankwaa
What lies before us? Horrible thoughts arise in my heart. If we had died before today we should have been happy.
— C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
These days, loneliness is the new cancer - a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don't want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.
— Gail Honeyman
Playing nice" comes naturally when our neuroception detects safety and promotes physiological states that support social behavior. However, pro-social behavior will not occur when our neuroception misreads the environmental cues and triggers physiological states that support defensive strategies. After all, "playing nice" is not appropriate or adaptive behavior in dangerous or life-threatening situations. In these situations, humans - like other mammals - react with more primitive neurobiological defense systems. To create relationships, humans must subdue these defensive reactions to engage, attach, and form lasting social bonds. Humans have adaptive neurobehavioral systems for both pro-social and defensive behaviors.
— Stephen W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation
The most difficult step ever is the first step. It comes with doubts, uncertainties, and all sort of fears. If you defy all odd and take it, your confidence will replicate very fast and you'll become a master!
— Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts
The restless adventurer within me stands eye-to-eye with the fear that has stepped directly in my path. And the thing I absolutely must not do is to blink first.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
You know it is a broken society when people fear each other more than they fear wild animals.
— Gift Gugu Mona
You will not find joy out of fear, therefore eliminate every component of fear in your life if joy is what you need.
— Gift Gugu Mona
Fear limits YOU and YOUR VISION.
— Abhishek Kumar, Stardust Family - We Are One!
Only stagnant people get stuck because they don't attempt to move at all.
— Alicia Jennings
Strange. Half my years afraid of life. The other half, afraid of death. Always some kind of afraid.
— Ray Bradbury, Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales
The pride Kaspar had seen in his father’s eyes, despite the admonishing words about foolish acts, had branded the boy for life. 'Never be afraid.' He knew that no matter what, any choice must be made fearlessly, or else all would be lost.
— Raymond E. Feist, Exile's Return
I didn't mind walking into danger on my own. Not the concept of it, anyway.
— Gwenda Bond, Triple Threat
Submission is a tyrannical discipline.
— Efrat Cybulkiewicz
Katherine gave in to the wonder of the moment, imagining herself in the astronauts' place. What emotions welled up from the depths of their hearts as they regarded their watery blue home from the void of space? How did it feel to be separated by a nearly unimaginable gulf from the rest of humanity yet carry the hopes, dreams, and fears of their entire species there with them in their tiny, vulnerable craft? Most people she knew wouldn't have traded places with the astronauts for all of the gold in Fort Knox. The men existed all alone out their in the void of space, connected so tenuously to Earth, with the real possibility that something could go wrong. But given the chance to throw her lot in with the astronauts, Katherine Johnson would have packed her bags immediately. Even without the pressure of the space race, even without the mandate to beat the enemy. For Katherine Johnson, curiosity always bested fear.
— Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
Sadly, in too many cases surrender is having been ‘outrun’ by fear rather than having ‘run out’ of heart.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
When one remains ‘sincere’, no type of fear will come to him in the worldly life (sansar) and it will lead him to moksha (ultimate liberation)!
— Dada Bhagwan
Oh, get off it with that. So sensitive about language. Mate, love, nest, whatever. Point is, it stinks, especially when it goes bad. I get wanting to run away.
— Jackson Lanzing, Joyride Vol. 2
Nothing is off-limits to me, tiny human. You think the desire in your heart is buried, but I couldn't ignore it if I tried! It means this: you want me to peace out? Shut it all down? Fine! I'll go! But you'll never get your next wish. Your secret wish. [. .] A mother's love. A father you know. A world at peace. A sky of stars. This could be yours . . . or you could lose it forever. And I can go. Doesn't matter to me, you finite speck.
— Jackson Lanzing, Joyride Vol. 2
By processing information from the environment through the senses, the nervous system continually evaluates risk. I have coined the term neuroception to describe how neural circuitsdistinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life-threatening. Because of our heritage as a species, neuroception takes place in primitive parts of the brain, without our conscious awareness.
— Stephen W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation
A child's (or an adult's) nervous system may detect danger or a threat to life when the child enters a new environment or meets a strange person. Cognitively, there is no reason for them to be frightened. But often, even if they understand this, their bodies betray them. Sometimes this betrayal is private; only they are aware that their hearts are beating fast and contracting with such force that they start to sway. For others, the responses are more overt. They may tremble. Their faces may flush, or perspiration may pour from their hands and forehead. Still others may become pale and dizzy and feel precipitously faint.
— Stephen W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation
what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn't know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person I was. it was a reflection of everything I gave to you. coming back to me. how did I not see that. how. did i sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way. when it was i that taught you. when it was i that showed you how to fill. the way i needed to be filled. how cruel i was to myself. giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. thinking it was you who gave me strength. wit. beauty. simply because you recognized it. as if i was already not these things before I met you. as if i did not remain these once you left.
— Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
I have often wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over precipices through sheer dread of falling.
— J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas
If we’re honest, what makes something impossible is not our fear. Rather, it is our indifference.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
Fear is always around some desire. You want to become a famous man, the most famous man in the world- then there is fear. What if you cannot make it? Fear comes. You want to become the richest man in the world. What if you don't succeed? You start trembling; fear comes. You want to possess a woman and you are afraid that tomorrow you may not be able to hold on to her, she may go to somebody else.
— Osho, Fear: Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of Life
In the evening I came home and read about the Messina earthquake, and how the relief ships arrived, and the wretched survivors crowded down to the water's edge and tore each other like wild beasts in their rage of hunger. The paper set forth, in horrified language, that some of them had been seventy-two hours without food. I, as I read, had also been seventy-two hours without food; and the difference was simply that they thought they were starving.
— Upton Sinclair, The Fasting Cure
Being afraid wouldn't find justice for the family---this boy seemed to understand that.
— Kerri Maniscalco, Stalking Jack the Ripper
Ashes have no fear to burn in hellIn your heart's paradise angels dwellRib cage fastens all sins of the wrongYour bones will sing you mortality’s song
— Munia Khan
What is essential is to suddenly make a move totally unexpected by the opponent, pick up on the advantage of fright, and seize the victory right then and there.
— Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
It is a rule of leading people, Gideon. You may be confused, or afraid, or overwhelmed, or all three—those who depend on you must never see it.
— Daniel M. Ford, Stillbright
Dragons are a manifestation of things we fear. More often than not, those fears prove to be just as daunting and just as imaginary.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Fearing the night won’t keep the sun from setting.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Fear comes at me like a massive bull with lowered horns ready to gore. But I have learned of the insubstantial nature of fear: if I stand my ground, it will pass right through me.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Fear is not respect. It is but a conniving, little weasel next to that mighty lion. They are a far, far cry from the same animal.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Fear confronted me, and I stood paralyzed. He seemed a formidable, abiding presence. Then a voice whispered, “Fear not.” Fear not, I thought with desperate longing. Oh, how I wanted to heed those words—but how? Hour after hour, day after day, fear refused to budge while I remained paralyzed. And so I let him make my choices; what else could I do? Alas, he never once chose well for me.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Fear never scaled one mountain, never stepped up on a stage, never accepted a challenge, never tilled new ground, never walked in a race; he never even dared to dream. Fear failed to slay a single dragon. Remember this before you choose to keep his company.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
I'm afraid of them and they don't like mebecause I'm afraid.
— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
I didn’t fear you. I feared us. I feared what could have been. I feared what could be. I feared the connection we had between each other. The toxicity because I could grasp the danger.
— Dominic Riccitello
I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid.
— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
My best advice about writer’s block is: the reason you’re having a hard time writing is because of a conflict between the GOAL of writing well and the FEAR of writing badly. By default, our instinct is to conquer the fear, but our feelings are much, much, less within our control than the goals we set, and since it’s the conflict BETWEEN the two forces blocking you, if you simply change your goal from “writing well” to “writing badly,” you will be a veritable fucking fountain of material, because guess what, man, we don’t like to admit it, because we’re raised to think lack of confidence is synonymous with paralysis, but, let’s just be honest with ourselves and each other: we can only hope to be good writers. We can only ever hope and wish that will ever happen, that’s a bird in the bush. The one in the hand is: we suck. We are terrified we suck, and that terror is oppressive and pervasive because we can VERY WELL see the possibility that we suck. We are well acquainted with it. We know how we suck like the backs of our shitty, untalented hands. We could write a fucking book on how bad a book would be if we just wrote one instead of sitting at a desk scratching our dumb heads trying to figure out how, by some miracle, the next thing we type is going to be brilliant. It isn’t going to be brilliant. You stink. Prove it. It will go faster. And then, after you write something incredibly shitty in about six hours, it’s no problem making it better in passes, because in addition to being absolutely untalented, you are also a mean, petty CRITIC. You know how you suck and you know how everything sucks and when you see something that sucks, you know exactly how to fix it, because you’re an asshole. So that is my advice about getting unblocked. Switch from team “I will one day write something good” to team “I have no choice but to write a piece of shit” and then take off your “bad writer” hat and replace it with a “petty critic” hat and go to town on that poor hack’s draft and that’s your second draft. Fifteen drafts later, or whenever someone paying you starts yelling at you, who knows, maybe the piece of shit will be good enough or maybe everyone in the world will turn out to be so hopelessly stupid that they think bad things are good and in any case, you get to spend so much less time at a keyboard and so much more at a bar where you really belong because medicine because childhood trauma because the Supreme Court didn’t make abortion an option until your unwanted ass was in its third trimester. Happy hunting and pecking!
— Dan Harmon
There is nothing to fear in this world. Whatever happens, it happens to the body-complex [relative-self], right?
— Dada Bhagwan
Who has fear? The one who has greed has fear.
— Dada Bhagwan
When one has no fear of insults, no one will insult him; that is the rule. The ‘transactions’ will continue as long as there is fear. The moment fear is gone, the transactions will end.
— Dada Bhagwan
And at twelve, heading for adulthood, a child fears that the way she is at that moment is all she's ever going to be.
— Jane Yolen
You couldn't speak to fear, couldn't tell it the truth: Fear lived in your bones.
— Cassandra Clare
But, when she was alone, someone rapped on the door and she found herself on her feet, knife in hand, before she had time to reason with her fear.
— Ruth Downie, Semper Fidelis
The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement.
— George Orwell, 1984
I wonder why the vast majority of humanity fears the truth and the unknown.
— Efrat Cybulkiewicz
Superman’s scourge is kryptonite. Fear’s kryptonite is laughter.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
If you dream your problems at night and live your problems by day, you are suffering the effects of paralyzing toxins delivered by the sting of worry, stress, and fear. You must detach yourself from these leeches if you do not wish to be irreversibly poisoned.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
I started crying when the group [therapy] was over because the last thing we did upset me - we all held a piece of the same cloth, leaned back and supported each other's weight. I couldn't do it. I bent my legs and elbows and stood very firm, yet . . .I needed to feel supported, as i do in life, but i can't let myself be, and i pretend not to need that support.
— Carol Lee, To Die For
Our higher duty is to fear God.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Mamá had always made it clear she believed girls who got raped deserved it. I hadn't done any of the things she said “bad” girls did, though. I didn't parade myself around in sluttish clothes and make untoward advances. But Mamá had been wrong about everything else so far, so maybe she'd been wrong about that, too. Maybe it didn't matter whether you were bad or good, prudish or wanton: maybe just being female was enough, for some men. Maybe, like so much else, it was only about control. But then why do I feel so guilty?
— Nenia Campbell, Cloak and Dagger
To fear God is to seek his favour.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I'm scared David""That's good, because there's lots to be afraid of
— David Wong, John Dies at the End
Don’t be too scared to calculate risks
— Sunday Adelaja
Before you can act you must choose. Before you can choose you must know. Before you can know you must feel. And before you can feel you must be trained.
— David Amerland, The Sniper Mind: Eliminate Fear, Deal with Uncertainty, and Make Better Decisions
Some time ago, my son Emilio was going back to school after vacation. He did not like the idea at all and was filled with anxiety. To him, the approach of school days was like a monster that threatened him and wanted to squash him. What is a parent supposed to do? I tried to lift his spirits, to distract him, convince him it was not as bad as it seemed, but in vain. Then I hit upon the idea of offering him something that is almost taboo in our family: French fries at a fast-food place. Usually anything that is prohibited appeals to Emilio, especially junk food. I thought I had the ace up my sleeve. But no. Emilio's reply ought to be chiseled in stone: "Dad, you don't solve problems with french fries."Touche. You don't pretend problems do not exist, and you can't solve them with ephemeral distractions. You have to face them with open-eyed honesty. Offering French fries to my son in order to console and distract him from his anxiety was by no means a kind act. I was simply choosing the easier option--far too easy. I had found a comfortable way out.
— Piero Ferrucci, The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life
Being a parent is joyful, but it's also haunted by the specter of loss.
— Richard  Beck, Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted
The biggest fear a corporate government has is that the masses will refuse to work.
— Steven Magee
It was no accident that one of the first things God asked of Adam was for him to name the animals he saw around him. Why do you suppose God asked man to do that? Because once you have a name, you have the beginning of understanding, and once you have understanding, you lose fear. God didn’t want man to be fearful. He wanted man to be brave.
— John   Kramer, Blythe