As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“Religion has nothing more to fear than not being sufficiently understood.”
No. 36.
Maxims and Moral Sentences
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Variant: Life can only be understood going backward, but must be lived going forward.
“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.”
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 56, p. 178
“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.”
Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay
“Though life has to be lived forward, it can only be understood backwards”
Source: Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter
“Life can only be understood backward; the trouble is, it has to be lived forward.”
In The Light of what We Know (2014)
“There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear.”
Speech at Columbia University (1949); published in Speeches 1949 - 1953 p. 402; as quoted in Sources of Indian Tradition (1988) by Stephen Hay, p. 350
Context: In times of crisis it is not unnatural for those who are involved in it deeply to regard calm objectivity in others as irrational, short-sighted, negative, unreal or even unmanly. But I should like to make it clear that the policy India has sought to pursue is not a negative and neutral policy. It is a positive and vital policy that flows from our struggle for freedom and from the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Peace is not only an absolute necessity for us in India in order to progress and develop but also of paramount importance to the world. How can that peace be preserved? Not by surrendering to aggression, not by compromising with evil or injustice but also not by the talking and preparing for war! Aggression has to be met, for it endangers peace. At the same time, the lesson of the past two wars has to be remembered and it seems to me astonishing that, in spite of that lesson, we go the same way. The very processes of marshaling the world into two hostile camps precipitates the conflict that it had sought to avoid. It produces a sense of terrible fear and that fear darkens men's minds and leads them to wrong courses. There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear. As a great President of the United States said, there is nothing really to fear except fear itself.
