Quotes about fear
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“I feel the fear, but I walk fast toward it.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Feeling

“Fear cripples faster than any implement of war.”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

War

“When you put your hands and mind and heart into the knowing of a thing… there is no room in you for fear.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Heart

“He knew me in all the ways that truly mattered: the shape of my fears, the contours of my dreams.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Dreams, Way

“Intense fear comes in waves; the body can’t stand it for long at a time.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Time

“and every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.”

Khaled Hosseini (1965) novelist

Death, God

“the constant shower of the sun's mane
erases the footprints on thin ice
do not fear deception for the world lies atop deception

~Toushiro Hitsugaya”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

World, Sun

“If you're are paralyzed with fear it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

“You see. No shock. No engulfment. No tearing assunder. What you feared would come like an explosion is like a whisper. What you thought was the end is the beginning.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Tear

“Everyone is afraid of something. We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don't wish you didn't fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn't feel anything.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Variant: We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don’t wish you didn’t fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn’t feel anything.
Source: Lord of Shadows

Love, People, Feeling

“Coming near him like a ballet dancer she took a leap towards him, and he, frightened by her vehemence, and fearing that she would crash against him, instinctively became absolutely rigid, and she felt herself embracing a statue.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“Fear's greatest weapon is its ability to blind one to anything. In its presence, we forget there are others to consider, things to save besides ourselves.”

Jonathan Carroll book Bones of the Moon

Source: Bones of the Moon

Forgetting

“She had always maintained a cynical facade, using it as a defence against embarrassment, fear, loneliness… but at the moment she felt unusually vulnerable.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: It Happened One Autumn

Loneliness

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

“He had lived a very long time, and only since he gained Anna had he learned to fear. He’d discovered that he had never been brave before—just indifferent. She had taught him that to be brave, you have to fear losing something.”

Patricia Briggs book Fair Game

Source: Fair Game

Learning, Time, Indifference

“Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Lord of the Silver Bow

Courage

“You don't fear so you live, you live so you fear.”

James Miller

“A woman shaking in fear from demons in her mind, and the old man who loves her more deeply than life itself, crying softly in the corner, his face in his hands.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Life, Cry

“No hero is above fear, Percy. And you have risen above every hero.
- Poseidon”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“When we're all alone, it might be to frightening to bear… but we're all right beside each other. We've got our friends close by! Now, there's nothing to fear! Because we're not alone!!!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

“Very little worth knowing is taught by fear.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

“In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation. Softly, he wept.”

Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Rage

“She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.”

Madeleine L'Engle book And Both Were Young

Source: And Both Were Young

Beauty, Feeling, Sense, Forgetting

“Sometimes fear made you angry. Perhaps after years anger cooled, like a sword taken from a forge. Perhaps in the end you were left with something very cold and very sharp.”

Frances Hardinge book Fly by Night

Source: Fly by Night

Anger

“Guilt and no guilt: these were the worst things. The only thing worse than the guilt was the fear of getting caught.”

Elin Hilderbrand (1969) American writer

Source: A Summer Affair

“Women who have power are always feared.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Women

“Those who do not fear the sword they wield have no right to wield a sword at all.
~Shuhei Hisagi”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Variant: He who does not fear the sword he holds is not worthy of holding a sword.
-Hisagi Shuuhei

“What is fear after all? It is indecision. You seek some way to resist, escape. There is none.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Source: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

Way, Indecision

“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Death

“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Dreams, Hope, Tear, Laughter

“Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Love, Life

“I love you' I thought. But I didn't say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face… My fear was a greater one--that she won't say it back.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Variant: I love you, I thought. But I didn’t say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face. She was far too kind for that. My fear was a greater one— that she won’t say it back.
Source: Beastly

Love

“Death doesn't really worry me that much, I'm not frightened about it… I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Variant: I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Death

“I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Dreams, Hope, Thinking

“Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Revelations (1993)
Context: The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

Love

“Maybe the fear is that
we are less than
we think we are,
when the
actuality of it
is that we are much much more.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness

Thinking

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star…”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"being to timelessness as it's to time" (1958)

For Wife, love, Relationship, Romantic

“You don’t need to control emotion,” he said. “Emotions are natural, like passing weather. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes sorrow or anger. Emotions are not the problem. The key is to transform the energy of emotion into constructive action.”

Dan Millman book Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Nature, Problem, Weather, Anger

“Fear is a habit; I am not afraid.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

“The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Life, Understanding, Sense, Study

“Old habits are hard to forget, and old fears are habits.”

Raymond E. Feist book The King's Buccaneer

Source: The King's Buccaneer

Forgetting

“Unpredictable as a hungry lion, he might be feared by everyone else, but he never ripped out my throat, only licked me, and, if his tongue was a little rough sometimes, it was worth it to walk beside the king of the jungle.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“It's fear, Jack. The man deals with a huge amount of fear.'
Because he got hurt?'
No, not entirely. Fear comes with imagination, it's a penalty, it's the price of imagination.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Penalty, Imagination, Hurt

“If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“Fear is incomplete knowledge.”

Agatha Christie book Death Comes as the End

(1945)
Source: Death Comes as the End

Knowledge

“Death is the number two fear that people have and public speaking is the first!”

Sidney Sheldon (1917–2007) American writer

Death, People

“If you want to make a million you don't have to understand money, what you have to understand is people's fears about money”

William Gaddis book J R

Source: JR

Money, People, Understanding

“I hated labels anyway. People didn’t fit in slots—prostitute, housewife, saint—like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Variant: I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.
Source: White Oleander

Hate, People, Water

“Better to love and fear than feel nothing”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love, Feeling

“When we grow up, we find ways to hide our anxieties, our loneliness, our fear and sorrow. But children hide nothing, putting everything into their tears, which they spread liberally about for the whole world to see.”

Yōko Ogawa book The Diving Pool: Three Novellas

Source: The Diving Pool: Three Novellas

Children, World, Way, Tear

“Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Love

“Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a Navy SEAL: He hasn’t slept in days, he’s all hopped up on Red Bull, and he’s liable to shoot at his own shadow in an absurd effort to keep everyone “safe.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Thinking, Effort

“Kate Daniels, deadly swordmaster. Fear my twitching pinkie.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“The fear of barbarians is what risks making us barbarians.”

Tzvetan Todorov (1939–2017) Bulgarian historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist

“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.”

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (1933) Japanese actress

Source: Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

Truth, Beauty, Music, Heart

“I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Feeling, Hell, Knowledge, Learning

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Courageous, Courage, Decision

“It's not that I like you least […] it's that I feared you most. The reginita taught me to like you. There was a strange joy to her that lifted my spirits. But you, Quintana of Charyn, you made me love you.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Love, Joy

“I said, "I do not fear those pants with nobody inside them." I said, and said, and said those words. I said them but I lied them.”

Dr. Seuss book The Sneetches and Other Stories

Source: The Sneetches and Other Stories

“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

“Thank you,” Skulduggery said to her. “I fear he was about to start insulting me.”
“I couldn’t let that happen,” she said. “Your ego is a fragile and delicate thing.”
“You see? You understand me.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Last Stand of Dead Men

Understanding

“When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused…nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Help

“It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Way, Tear

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

“And thus we all are nighing
The truth we fear to know:
Death will end our crying
For friends that come and go.”

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) American poet

Death, Truth, Cry

“What shall we do, all of us? All of us oassionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, our watermelon hearts?”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Variant: What shall we do? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, and watermelon hearts?
Source: Blood Roses

Love, Girl, Boy, Heart

“There's something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Pleasure, Way, Problem, Universe

“It’s foolish to fear what we’ve yet to see and know.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“It's natural to feel fear. All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not…”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Stupidity, Feeling, Nature

“It is far better to put away fear than to be driven by it.”

Alison Croggon book The Riddle

Source: The Riddle

“Don't waste your time with fear.. Fear won't keep you safe from being hurt.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Time, Hurt

“But America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Special Message to the Congress: The President's First Economic Report (1947)
Source: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/4/special-message-congress-presidents-first-economic-report

Courageous, Imagination, Courage

“If that is what this world is, what humans are… There is no future. Understanding and faith… If you take those away, all that's left is fear. I can't accept immoral methods or giving up.”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Source: Naruto, Band 11

World, Faith, Understanding, Future

“We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

“He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Hope

“Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 5: The Passes 
Context: Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.

World, Home, Mountain