“Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.”

— Umberto Eco, book The Name of the Rose

Variant: Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.”" -
Source: The Name of the Rose

Last update Oct. 29, 2021. History

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Umberto Eco120

Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic… 1932–2016

James Neil Hollingworth (1933–1996) talent manager

Quoted in K. Patrick Malone, Inside a Haunted Mind (2008) p. 167

“A MAN FEARED

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Why Men Fight https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Men_Fight (1917), pp. 178-179 <br class="br">Context: Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence; yet it bears itself proudly, as unmoved as if it were lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.