Robert Graves: Quotes about fear

Robert Graves was English poet and novelist. Explore interesting quotes on fear.
Robert Graves: 234 quotes0 likes

“Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys
Are here discreetly blent”

Robert Graves

Country Sentiment (1920)
Context: Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys
Are here discreetly blent;
Admire, you ladies, read, you boys,
My Country Sentiment.

"A First Review".

“Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery.”

Robert Graves book The Greek Myths

Volume 1, Introduction.
The Greek Myths (1955)
Context: Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery.

“There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.”

Robert Graves

"The Cool Web," lines 9–12, from Poems 1914-1926 (1927).
Poems

“They multiplied into the Sirens' throng,
Forewarned by fear of whom he stood bound fast
Hand and foot helpless to the vessel's mast,
Yet would not stop his ears: daring their song
He groaned and sweated till that shore was past.”

Robert Graves

Poems

“Hate and Fear are not wanted here,
Nor Toys nor Country Lovers,
Everything they took from my new poem book
But the flyleaf and the covers.”

Robert Graves

"A First Review"
Country Sentiment (1920)

“Hate is a fear, and fear is rot
That cankers root and fruit alike,
Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not,
Strike with no madness when you strike.”

Robert Graves

"Hate Not, Fear Not".
Country Sentiment (1920)

“Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses
There is one story and one story only.”

Robert Graves

"To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946).
Poems

“Trench stinks of shallow buried dead
Where Tom stands at the periscope,
Tired out. After nine months he’s shed
All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope.”

Robert Graves

"Through the Periscope" (1915) [first published in 1988]
Poems

“Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery.”

Robert Graves book The Greek Myths

Volume 1, Introduction
The Greek Myths (1955)

“Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys
Are here discreetly blent;
Admire, you ladies, read, you boys,
My Country Sentiment.”

Robert Graves

"A First Review"
Country Sentiment (1920)