Quotes about fear
page 27

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani photo

“Interviewer: How do you view the fears of the creation of a "Shiite Crescent?"”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

2007

Julian Schwinger photo
Wayne Pacelle photo

“There are lots of gun rights groups, but the one that you hear about and the one that is feared is the NRA. I'd rather be loved -- and feared.”

Wayne Pacelle (1965) American activist

"Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry," 2008

Ray Comfort photo
Baba Amte photo
Tila Tequila photo
Edward Snowden photo

“Abandoning open society for fear of terrorism is the only way to be defeated by it.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

2016
Source: Twitter, February 9, 2016 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/697077569250787328

Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon photo

“Fear made the gods; audacity has made kings.”

Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707–1777) French writer

La crainte fit les dieux; l'audace a fait les rois.
During the French Revolution; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 46.

“A Muslim is he who carries the fear of God in his heart and tries, by following the ways of Islam, to rise in spiritual stature: and not merely he who happens to have been born in a Muslim house and bears a Muslim name.”

Muhammad Asad (1900–1992) Austro-Hungarian writer and academic

Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Calling All Muslims, Radio Broadcast # 7, p 117

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Jack McDevitt photo
Gabrielle Roy photo
Andrew Ure photo
Thaddeus Stevens photo
Max Beckmann photo

“.. [war] in itself is one of the manifestations of life, like disease, love, and lust. And just as I follow fear, disease, lust, love, and hate to their utmost limits, well, now I am trying war. It is all life, wonderfully various and rich in inspiration.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Briefe im Kriege May 1915, p. 67; as quoted in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 79
1900s - 1920s

Brandon Boyd photo

“Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Make Yourself (1999)

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV photo
Max Frisch photo
S.L.A. Marshall photo
Pol Pot photo

“We want only peace, to build up our country. World opinion is paying great attention to the threat against Democratic Kampuchea. They are anxious. They fear Kampuchea cannot oppose the Vietnamese. This could hurt the interests of the Southeast Asian countries and all of the world's countries.”

Pol Pot (1925–1998) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea

Interview with Elizabeth Becker (22 December 1978), quoted in "Pol Pot remembered" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/81048.stm, BBC News (20 April 1998)

Ayman Odeh photo

“In a government that has lost all shame, that fears its own shadow, the majority tramples the minority, legislation is racist and the democratic space is under constant threat.”

Ayman Odeh (1975) Israeli lawyer and member of the Knesset

As quoted in ‘Racist and Discriminatory’: U.S. Jewish Leaders Warn Israel Against Passage of Nation-state Bill https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-u-s-jewish-chiefs-warn-against-passage-of-racist-nation-state-bill-1.6270788 (July 15, 2018) by Allison Kaplan Sommer and Bar Peleg, Haaretz.

Marguerite Yourcenar photo

“One must not fear the words anymore when one consented to the things.”

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903–1987) French writer

On ne doit plus craindre les mots lorsqu'on a consenti aux choses.
Alexis (1929)

Silvio Berlusconi photo

“Obviously the government of [Mussolini's] time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it … The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

In a speech in Milan, while heading a coallition which includes parties with fascist roots, as quoted in "Berlusconi praises Mussolini on Holocaust Memorial Day" at BBC News (27 January 2013) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21222341
2013

Stanley Hauerwas photo
Henry Adams photo
John M. Mason photo
Gustave Nadaud photo

“Translated:
I’m growing old, I’m sixty years;
I’ve labored all my life in vain.
In all that time of hopes and fears,
I’ve failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see full well that here below
Bliss unalloyed there is for none
My prayer would else fulfilment know —
Never have I seen Carcassonne!”

Gustave Nadaud (1820–1893) songwriter

Je me fais vieux, j’ai soixante ans,
J’ai travaillé toute ma vie,
Sans avoir, durant tout ce temps.
Pu satisfaire mon envie.
Je vois bien qu’il n’est ici-bas
De bonheur complet pour personne.
Mon vœu ne s’accomplira pas:
Je n’ai jamais vu Carcassonne!
Stanza 1.
Carcassonne, (c. 1887; with translation by John Reuben Thompson)

William Wordsworth photo
Al Gore photo
Nadine Gordimer photo
John Bright photo
Georges Bernanos photo
Julien Offray de La Mettrie photo

“Write as if thou wert alone in the universe and hadst nothing to fear from the jealousies and prejudices of the people. Otherwise thou wilt miss thy purpose.”

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751) French physician and philosopher

Preface, Oeuvres philosophiques de Monsieur de La Mettrie (1764) as quoted by Paul Carus, The Mechanistic Principle and the Non-mechanical (1913) p. 102. https://books.google.com/books?id=wGNRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA102

John Donne photo

“When God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

No. 76 http://books.google.com/books?id=eypXAAAAYAAJ&q=%22When+God's+hand+is+bent+to+strike+it+is+a+fearful+thing+to+fall+into+the+hands+of+the+living+God+but+to+fall+out+of+the+hands+of+the+living+God+is+a+horror+beyond+our+expression+beyond+our+imagination%22&pg=PA386#v=onepage, preached at Sion to The Earl of Carlisle and company (c. 1622)
LXXX Sermons (1640)

David Icke photo
E. B. White photo

“A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom — he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Salt Water Farm http://books.google.com/books?id=njRHAAAAYAAJ&q=%22A+despot+doesn't+fear+eloquent+writers+preaching+freedom+he+fears+a+drunken+poet+who+may+crack+a+joke+that+will+take+hold%22&pg=PA52#v=onepage
One Man's Meat (1942)

Winston S. Churchill photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Hjalmar Schacht photo
Michael Bloomberg photo
Dio Chrysostom photo
Jennifer Beals photo
Khalil Gibran photo
Max Beckmann photo

“My heart beats more for a rougher, more ordinary, more vulgar art that does not live in a poetic, fairy-tale dream but admits the fearful, the common, the magnificent, the ordinary, the banal grotesque in life. An art that can always be directly present to us when life is at its most real.. [ on the same day he noted:].. Martin thinks there will be a war. Russia England France against Germany. We agreed that it would be no bad thing for our rather demoralized present-day civilization if everyone's instincts and drives were to be harnessed to one cause..”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Beckmann's Diary, 9 January, 1909, in Leben in Berlin: Tagebuch, 1908-1909, ed. Hans Kinkel; R. Piper & Co., Munich and Zurich, 1983, pp. 22-23; as quoted in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 99
1900s - 1920s

Thomas Gainsborough photo

“By God you are the only great man, except George Pitt, that I care a farthing for, or would wear out a pair of shoes in seeking after. Long-headed cunning people and rich fools are so plentiful in our country that I don’t fear getting now and then a face to paint for bread, but a man of genius with truth and simplicity, sense and good nature, I think worth his weight in gold - [signed:] 'Your Likeness Man”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in Gainsborough's letter to Hon. Constantine Phipps, undated; as cited in 'My Dear Maggoty Sir – The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough' http://thedabbler.co.uk/2011/10/my-dear-maggoty-sir-the-letters-of-thomas-gainsborough/, review by Roger Hudson, in Slightly Foxed, 18 Oct, 2011
undated

Willem de Kooning photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Muhammad al-Taqi photo
Jeffrey Montgomery photo
Pierre Corneille photo

“He who fears not death fears not a threat.”

Qui ne craint point la mort ne craint point les menaces.
Don Gomès, act II, scene i.
Le Cid (1636)

Laurie Penny photo
Atal Bihari Vajpayee photo

“I have a vision of India: an India free of hunger and fear, an India free of illiteracy and want. I dream of an India that is prosperous, strong and caring. An India, that regains a place of honour in the comity of great nations.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

Vajpayee during his 1999 Independence Day speech. Quoted from Vajpayee No More: Here Are His Five Most Powerful Quotes https://swarajyamag.com/insta/vajpayee-no-more-here-are-his-five-most-powerful-quotes Swaraja, Aug 16 2018

John Gray photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
John C. Wright photo
Kuruvilla Pandikattu photo
Kameron Hurley photo

“Countries at war lived in a state of perpetual fear.”

Kameron Hurley (1980) American writer

Source: God’s War (2011), Chapter 26 (p. 197).

Niccolo Machiavelli photo

“Fear of evil is greater than the evil itself.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

Sono maggiori li spaventi ch'e mali.
Act III, scene xi
The Mandrake (1524)

Salman Rushdie photo

“The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skits, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list — yes, even the short skirts and the dancing — are worth dying for? The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them. How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992–2002

“It's the most unhappy people who most fear change.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Alexander Maclaren photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“You have surely noticed among schoolboys, that the one that is regarded by all as the boldest is the one who has no fear of his father, who dares to say to the others, "Do you think I am afraid of him?" On the other hand, if they sense that one of their number is actually and literally afraid of his father, they will readily ridicule him a little. Alas, in men’s fear-ridden rushing together into a crowd (for why indeed does a man rush into a crowd except because he is afraid!) there, too, it is a mark of boldness not to be afraid, not even of God. And if someone notes that there is an individual outside the crowd who is really and truly afraid – not of the crowd, but of God, he is sure to be the target of some ridicule. The ridicule is usually glossed over somewhat and it is said: a man should love God. Yes, to be sure, God knows that man’s highest consolation is that God is love and that man is permitted to love Him. But let us not become too forward, and foolishly, yes, blasphemously, dismiss the tradition of our fathers, established by God Himself: that really and truly a man should fear God. This fear is known to the man who is himself conscious of being an individual, and thereby is conscious of his eternal responsibility before God.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart, 1847 Steere translation p. 196-197
1840s, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), Purity of Heart (1847)

“The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.”

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian

An Old Man's Diary ([1981] 1984) p. 39

John Ruysbroeck photo
Prem Rawat photo

“fear or freedom
choose freedom
choose freedom
--
being free
is not an idea
it is a feeling
it emanates from within”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

From a collection of hundreds of quotes set to music and available online at Maharaji's personal website http://www.maharaji.net/ (2001)
2000s

John F. Kennedy photo
Ronda Rousey photo

“People say to me all the time, "You have no fear." I tell them, "No, that's not true. I'm scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I'm a courageous person because I'm a scared person."”

Ronda Rousey (1987) American judoka, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and actress

"Ronda Rousey: What I've Learned", in Esquire.com (26 December 2012) http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a17607/ronda-rousey-mma-quotes-0113/

Maya Angelou photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Thomas Hood photo

“Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.”

The Death-Bed; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
20th century

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“I believe that the grand secret of attraction is, that the details always turn on what is present to our fears, or gratifying to our vanity.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

No.13. The Legend of Montrose — ANNOT LYLE.
Literary Remains

Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“The Sultan himself joined in the pursuit, and went after them as far as the fort called Bhimnagar [Nagarkot, modern Kangra], which is very strong, situated on the promontory of a lofty hill, in the midst of impassable waters. The kings of Hind, the chiefs of that country, and rich devotees, used to amass their treasures and precious jewels, and send them time after time to be presented to the large idol that they might receive a reward for their good deeds and draw near to their God. So the Sultan advanced near to this crow's fruit, ^ and this accumulation of years, which had attained such an amount that the backs of camels would not carry it, nor vessels contain it, nor writers hands record it, nor the imagination of an arithmetician conceive it. The Sultan brought his forces under the fort and surrounded it, and prepared to attack the garrison vigorously, boldly, and wisely. When the defenders saw the hills covered with the armies of plunderers, and the arrows ascending towards them like flaming sparks of fire, great fear came upon them, and, calling out for mercy, they opened the gates, and fell on the earth, like sparrows before a hawk, or rain before lightning. Thus did God grant an easy conquest of this fort to the Sultan, and bestowed on him as plunder the products of mines and seas, the ornaments of heads and breasts, to his heart's content. … After this he returned to Ghazna in triumph; and, on his arrival there, he ordered the court-yard of his palace to be covered with a carpet, on which he displayed jewels and unbored pearls and rubies, shining like sparks, or like wine congealed with ice, and emeralds like fresh sprigs of myrtle, and diamonds in size and weight like pomegranates. Then ambassadors from foreign countries, including the envoy from Tagh^n Khan, king of Turkistin, assembled to see the wealth which they had never yet even read of in books of the ancients, and which had never been accumulated by kings of Persia or of Rum, or even by Karun, who had only to express a wish and Grod granted it.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the capture of Bhimnagar, Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 34-35 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes (971 CE to 1013 CE)

Orson Scott Card photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Olaudah Equiano photo

“Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.”

Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) African abolitionist

Chap. II
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 296

George Moore (novelist) photo

“Injustice we worship; all that lifts us out of the miseries of life is the sublime fruit of injustice. Every immortal deed was an act of fearful injustice; the world of grandeur, of triumph, of courage, of lofty aspiration, was built up on injustice. Man would not be man but for injustice.”

George Moore (novelist) (1852–1933) Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist

Source: Confessions of a Young Man http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12278/12278-h/12278-h.htm (1886), Ch. 10.

John Ralston Saul photo
Menno Simons photo
Mike Tomlin photo

“We don't live in our fears, we live in our hopes.”

Mike Tomlin (1972) head coach of the National Football League's Pittsburgh Steelers

Following the Steelers win over the Rams in 2007, quoted in "Steelers Notebook: Turf wars — Natural or artificial at Heinz Field?" by Gerry Dulac in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (22 December 2007) http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07356/843782-66.stm?cmpid=sports.xml

Samuel Johnson photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Mikhail Bulgakov photo

“In fact, I'm beginning to fear that this confusion will go on for a long time. And all because he writes down what I said incorrectly.”

Book One in 'Pontius Pilate', B/O, here Yeshua is speaking to Pontius Pilate
The Master and Margarita (1967)

John Adams photo

“The invasion of Georgia and South Carolina is the first. But why should the invasion of these two States affect the credit of the thirteen, more than the invasion of any two others? Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been invaded by armies much more formidable. New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, have been all invaded before. But what has been the issue? Not conquest, not submission. On the contrary, all those States have learned the art of war and the habits of submission to military discipline, and have got themselves well armed, nay, clothed and furnished with a great deal of hard money by these very invasions. And what is more than all the rest, they have got over the fears and terrors that are always occasioned by a first invasion, and are a worse enemy than the English; and besides, they have had such experience of the tyranny and cruelty of the English as have made them more resolute than ever against the English government. Now, why should not the invasion of Georgia and Carolina have the same effects? It is very certain, in the opinion of the Americans themselves, that it will. Besides, the unexampled cruelty of Cornwallis has been enough to revolt even negroes; it has been such as will make the English objects of greater horror there than in any of the other States.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Baron Van Der Capellen (21 January 1781), Amsterdam. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2105#lf1431-07_head_239
1780s

William Cobbett photo

“It would be tedious to dwell upon every striking mark of national decline: some, however, will press themselves forward to particular notice; and amongst them are: that Italian-like effeminacy, which has, at last, descended to the yeomanry of the country, who are now found turning up their silly eyes in ecstacy at a music-meeting, while they should be cheering the hounds, or measuring their strength at the ring; the discouragement of all the athletic sports and modes of strife amongst the common people, and the consequent and fearful increase of those cuttings and stabbings, those assassin-like ways of taking vengeance, formerly heard of in England only as the vices of the most base and cowardly foreigners, but now become so frequent amongst ourselves as to render necessary a law to punish such practices with death; the prevalence and encouragement of a hypocritical religion, a canting morality, and an affected humanity; the daily increasing poverty of the national church, and the daily increasing disposition still to fleece the more than half-shorne clergy, who are compelled to be, in various ways, the mere dependants of the upstarts of trade; the almost entire extinction of the ancient country gentry, whose estates are swallowed up by loan-jobbers, contractors, and nabobs, who, for the far greater part not Englishmen themselves, exercise in England that sort of insolent sway, which, by the means of taxes raised from English labour, they have been enabled to exercise over the slaves of India or elsewhere; the bestowing of honours upon the mere possessors of wealth, without any regard to birth, character, or talents, or to the manner in which that wealth has been acquired; the familiar intercourse of but too many of the ancient nobility with persons of low birth and servile occupations, with exchange and insurance-brokers, loan and lottery contractors, agents and usurers, in short, with all the Jew-like race of money-changers.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (27 October 1804).

George Galloway photo
Geert Wilders photo
Richard Russo photo
Robert D. Kaplan photo
Samuel Daniel photo
Joe Higgins photo