Quotes about fear
page 32

William Julius Mickle photo
Sara Teasdale photo
Friedrich Dürrenmatt photo

“Who sows fear, reaps weapons.”

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990) Swiss author and dramatist

About Tolerance (1977)

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence." We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

King v. Suddis (1800), 1 East, 314. Lord Kenyon is later reported to have written, "I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence". King v. Airey (c. 1800), 2 East, 34.

Thomas Carlyle photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo

“The anti‐Semite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse. I mentioned awhile back some remarks by anti‐Semites, all of them absurd: "I hate Jews because they make servants insubordinate, because a Jewish furrier robbed me, etc." Never believe that anti‐ Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Pages 13-14
(1945)

Joanna MacGregor photo

“Memory is the fear, and I play most of my repertoire from memory.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Express on Sunday, 06/01/2002
Musician's life

Emma Goldman photo

“I heard, fear-stricken and amazed,
My speech tongue-tied, my hair upraised.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book III, p. 77

Statius photo

“Then they invite her to join the dance and approach the holy rites, and make room for her in their ranks and rejoice to be near her. Just as Idalian birds, cleaving the soft clouds and long since gathered in the sky or in their homes, if a strange bird from some distant region has joined them wing to wing, are at first all filled with amaze and fear; then nearer and nearer they fly, and while yet in the air have made him one of them and hover joyfully around with favouring beat of pinions and lead him to their lofty resting-places.”
Dehinc sociare choros castisque accedere sacris hortantur ceduntque loco et contingere gaudent. qualiter Idaliae volucres, ubi mollia frangunt nubila, iam longum caeloque domoque gregatae, si iunxit pinnas diversoque hospita tractu venit avis, cunctae primum mirantur et horrent; mox propius propiusque volant, atque aere in ipso paulatim fecere suam plausuque secundo circumeunt hilares et ad alta cubilia ducunt.

Source: Achilleid, Book I, Line 370

Pierre Vergniaud photo

“Citizens, we have reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will successively devour all its children, and finally produce despotism, with the calamities that accompany it.”

Pierre Vergniaud (1753–1793) French politician

Citoyens, il est à craindre que la révolution, comme Saturne, ne dévore successivement tous ses enfants et n’engendre enfin le despotisme avec les calamités qui l’accompagnent.
Quoted by F.A.M. Mignet, Histoire de la révolution française (1824), ch. 7 http://perso.orange.fr/fdomi.fournier/H%20moderne/Mignet/P_04.htm original French] and [http://www.fullbooks.com/History-of-the-French-Revolution-from-17894.html English translation

Vanna Bonta photo

“Pushing fear and sex buttons is a poor substitute for aesthetic elation, transcendental euphoria and quintessential stimulation.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

State of the Art (2000)

John the Evangelist photo

“Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name, because you alone are loyal?”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

Revelation 15:4 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/bi12/books/revelation/15/, NWT
Revelation

Jane Jacobs photo
Warren Farrell photo
Lesslie Newbigin photo
Tench Coxe photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Source: Character of the Happy Warrior http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww302.html (1806), Line 12.

Chris Cornell photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Walter Raleigh photo
Wilhelm II, German Emperor photo
Baruch Spinoza photo
D. V. Gundappa photo

“Fear is a mental projection of something that has not happened.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 155

John Bright photo

“The Corn Law is as great a robbery of the man who follows the plough as it is of him who minds the loom…If there be one view of the question which stimulates me to harder work in this cause than another, it is the fearful sufferings which I know to exist amongst the rural laborers in almost every part of this kingdom…And then a fat and sleek dean, a dignitary of the Church and a great philosopher, recommends for the consumption of the people—he did not read a paper about the supplies that were to be had in the great valley of the Mississippi—but he said that there were swede, turnip and mangel-wurzel; and the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, if to out-Herod Herod himself, recommends hot water and a pinch of curry-powder. The people of England have not, even under thirty years of Corn Law influence, been sunk so low as to submit tamely to this insult and wrong. It is enough that a law should be passed to make your toil valueless, to make your skill and labor unavailing to procure for you a fair supply of the common necessaries of life—but when to this grievous iniquity they add the insult of telling you to go, like beasts that perish, to mangel-wurzel, or to something which even the beasts themselves cannot eat, then I believe the people of England will rise, and with one voice proclaim the downfall of this odious system.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech at an Anti-Corn Law League meeting (summer 1843), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 93-94.
1840s

Michael Jordan photo
Fabius Maximus photo

“To his friends he said that he thought the man who feared gibes and jeers was more of a coward than the one who ran away from the enemy.”

Fabius Maximus politician and soldier

Moralia: Sayings of Kings and Commanders, Plutarch; English translation by Frank Cole Babbitt
Variant translation by Goodwin:
He that is afraid of scoffs and reproaches is more a coward than he that flies from the enemy.

Steve Kilbey photo

“It's never as good as I hoped or as bad as I feared ~ Into My Hands”

Steve Kilbey (1954) British artist

Lyrics

John Maynard Keynes photo
Edgar Degas photo

“I, marry? Oh, I could never bring myself to do it. I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

"Methods of Work" (p. 64)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Thomas Little Heath photo
David Cameron photo
Michael Ignatieff photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.”

L'amour de la justice n'est en la plupart des hommes que la crainte de souffrir l'injustice.
Maxim 78.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Andrew Vachss photo
Yann Martel photo
John Gray photo
Margaret Mead photo

“Saying "yes" for fear of saying "no" is a recipe for resentment.”

Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician

Designing Your Own Destiny

George W. Bush photo

“The federal government and the state government must not fear programs who change lives, but must welcome those faith-based programs for the embetterment of mankind.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks at a luncheon http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-2002-08-26/html/WCPD-2002-08-26-Pg1411.htm for gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon in Stockton, California, August 23, 2002.
2000s, 2002

Julia Ward Howe photo
Clifford D. Simak photo
Yvette Cooper photo

“Nigel Farage is still trying to whip up fear and hatred towards refugees who are fleeing from conflict. It was extremely ill-judged of him to describe himself as a victim.”

Yvette Cooper (1969) British politician

Response on Farage's denial for being responsible for whipping up hate against immigrants - Nigel Farage says he is a victim of poltical hatred in response to Jo Cox question http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-jo-cox-dead-murdered-peston-brexit-eu-referendum-ukip-political-hatred-a7089996.html (19 June 2016)

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo
Peter Sloterdijk photo
M. S. Subbulakshmi photo

“My greatest fear is giving performances. I feel I am responsible for the audience BUT I am also scared of them.”

M. S. Subbulakshmi (1916–2004) singer,Carnatic vocalist

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,

Russell Brand photo

“The world is changing and we are awakening. These statistics give us a numerical glimpse at the visceral dissatisfaction that most of us feel. Now is the time to express it. These corrupt structures cannot be maintained without our compliance. You could vote against them, if there was anything to vote for, but there isn’t, or you could stop paying your mortgage, stop paying your taxes, stop buying stuff you don’t need. When we, the majority, unite and demonstrate our new intention, we will be invincible. If we, who are complicit by our silence, become active and disobedient. This is a pivotal time in the history of our species. We are transitioning from an ideology that places power and responsibility in the hands of the few to one where we all collectively have power. It is important that we clarify, in a manner accessible to all, which institutions and systems are beneficial and which ones have to go. It is important that we propose ideas and systems that will be advantageous, like the handful in this book, and ensure that they are presented properly. When they are inevitably disparaged by the fearful enemies of change, we must remain unified and insistent. At this climactic time, we have no choice but change. This book, written by a twerp, with minimal interaction with brilliant thinkers and uncorrupted minds, demonstrates that. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

Revolution (2014)

Edward Sapir photo
Stephen King photo
Thomas Hobbes photo
Ambrose photo

“And what else did John have in mind but what is virtuous, so that he could not endure a wicked union even in the king's case, saying: "It is not lawful for thee to have her to wife." He could have been silent, had he not thought it unseemly for himself not to speak the truth for fear of death, or to make the prophetic office yield to the king, or to indulge in flattery. He knew well that he would die as he was against the king, but he preferred virtue to safety. Yet what is more expedient than the suffering which brought glory to the saint.”
Quid autem aliud Ioannes nisi honestatem consideravit? ut inhonestas nuptias etiam in rege non posset perpeti, dicens: Non licet tibi illam uxorem habere. Potuit tacere, nisi indecorum sibi iudicasset mortis metu verum non dicere, inclinare regi propheticam auctoritatem, adulationem subtexere. Sciebat utique moriturum se esse, quia regi adversabatur: sed honestatem saluti praetulit. Et tamen quid utilius quam quod passionis viro sancto advexit gloriam?

Ambrose (339–397) bishop of Milan; one of the four original doctors of the Church

De officiis ministrorum ("On the Offices of Ministers" or, "On the Duties of the Clergy"), Book III, chapter XIV, part 89 as quoted in www.ewtn.com http://www.ewtn.com/library/PATRISTC/PII10-2.HTM

Orson Scott Card photo
Herbert Hoover photo
Nick Bostrom photo
Samuel Adams photo
Leo Igwe photo
Peter Gabriel photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“I say without fear of my figures being successfully challenged that India today is more illiterate than it was before a fifty or hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root and left the root like that and the beautiful tree perished.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Mahatma Gandhi, Speech at Chatham House, London, on October 20, 1931. Quoted in Essential Writings of Dharampal by Dharampal, and quoted in S.R. Goel, Hindu Society under siege http://web.archive.org/web/20170202032436/http://bharatvani.org/books/hsus/ch4.htm
1930s

John Buchan photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Omar Khayyám photo
Rose Wilder Lane photo
Josh Homme photo

“Holding on too long is just a fear of letting go.”

Josh Homme (1973) American musician

"...Like Clockwork", ...Like Clockwork (2013)
Lyrics, Queens of the Stone Age

William Kingdon Clifford photo

“As often happens, fear showed itself in hostility.”

Source: Eifelheim (2006), Chapter XII (p. 212)

Mircea Eliade photo
Sofía Sisniega photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
Gardiner Spring photo
William Wordsworth photo
Howell Cobb photo
Horace photo

“And what he fears he cannot make attractive with his touch he abandons.”
Et quae Desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit.

Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 149 (tr. H. R. Fairclough)

William Wordsworth photo
Joy Villa photo
Rollo May photo

“Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: Man’s Search for Himself (1953), p. 220

Perry Anderson photo
George Fitzhugh photo

“[Even if established procedures exist for replacing leaders, ] they are relatively harmless to the entrenched leaders (because functionless) so long as the ranks fear the consequences of using them”

Philip Selznick (1919–2010) American sociologist

Source: "An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy," 1943, p. 52; As cited in: Howard E. Aldrich (2008), Organizations and Environments. p. 209

Thomas Brooks photo
Benjamin Rush photo

“Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them…”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Provisions of the Last Will and Testament of Dr. James Rush http://books.google.com/books?id=lSowTqXCyyUC&pg=PA13&dq=%22dreaded+by+the+advocates+of+error%22&hl=en&ei=NCJGTP-fBJ-QnwfB8K2uBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13&ved=0CGQQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22dreaded%20by%20the%20advocates%20of%20error%22&f=false

Dawn Butler photo

“We must finally see an end to cruel and inhumane conversion therapies, which have been allowed to spread fear and hatred in our society for far too long.”

Dawn Butler (1969) British politician

As quoted in Gay conversion therapy should be made illegal in LGBT action plan, Labour tells Theresa May https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-theresa-may-gay-conversion-therapy-lgbt-action-plan-theresa-may-a8425581.html (2 July 2018) by Ashley Cowburn, The Independent.

Pasquier Quesnel photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“An education and a job are important. But it won’t handle the fear.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Tanith Lee photo
Anastas Mikoyan photo

“Like Lenin Comrade Stalin is a leader of a higher type. He is a mountain eagle, without fear in the fight, who boldly leads the bolshevik party on unexplored roads toward the total victory of Communism.”

Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman

Statement of 13 March 1939, as quoted in "Facts on Communism" (1960) by the United States Congress, p. 157

“Anger is stronger than fear, stronger than sorrow.”

p 69 - Book one: The winds of change - The web of illusion
Way of the Peaceful Warrior (1980)

Laisenia Qarase photo

“In view of what has happened to other indigenous groups, the fear and insecurity of Fijians should be easy to understand.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Excerpts from a parliamentary speech, 3 June 2005

Robert Southwell photo

“Though all the East did quake to hear
Of Alexander's dreadful name,
And all the West did likewise fear
To hear of Julius Cæsar's fame.”

Robert Southwell (1561–1595) English Jesuit

Source: Upon the Image of Death, Line 43; pp. 137-8.

William Pitt the Younger photo

“Pitt: Never fear, Mr. Burke: depend on it we shall go on as we are, until the day of judgment.
Edmund Burke: Very likely, Sir. It is the day of no judgment that I am afraid of.”

William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) British politician

Conversation at a dinner in 10 Downing Street (24 September 1791), quoted in George Pellew, The Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth, Volume I (London: John Murray, 1847), p. 72.

Michael Parenti photo

“It is ironic that people of modest means sometimes become conservative out of a scarcity fear bred by the very capitalist system they support.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 3, p. 44