Quotes about fear
page 40

“MY dearest friend — White or some of my friends or the public papers by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines. My poor dear dearest sister in a fit of insanity has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a mad house, from whence I fear she must be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses, — I eat and drink and sleep, and have my judgment I believe very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr. Norris of the Bluecoat school has been very very kind to us, and we have no other friend, but thank God I am very calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to do. Write, —as religious a letter as possible— but no mention of what is gone and done with. —With me “the former things are passed away,” and I have something more to do that [than] to feel. God almighty have us all in his keeping.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Lamb in September 27, 1796. In his letter to Coleridge; after the family tragedy. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. Letters (1905).

Death, God, School, Family

“On Judgement Day, those who think such talk is 'fear mongering' will find out that it's not. It is simply the truth, and they will wish to God (understatement) that they had obeyed the Gospel.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God, Truth, Thinking

“But not in my family. My mother and father (with immigrant pragmatism) assumed the American tongue would reinvent their children. Just so did several immigrant Hispanic mothers in Southern California recently remark their children’s reluctance to join America. These mothers feared their children were not swimming in the American current—not in the swifts and not in the depths; not even in the pop. They blamed “bilingual education,” a leaky boat theorem ostensibly designed to sink into the American current. (In fact, the theorem became a bureacracy preoccupied with prolonging itself.) These few mothers organized an opposition to bilingual education and eventually they sank the Armada in California. Theirs was an American impulse: to engage the American flow directly and to let their children be taken by it.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Children, Education, Family

“In his seminar on The Ethic of Psychoanalysis, Lacan speaks of the role of the Chorus in classical tragedy: we, the spectators, came to the theatre worried, full of everyday problems, unable to adjust without reserve to the problems of the play, that is to feel the required fears and compassions - but not problem, there is a chorus, who feels the sorrow and the compassion instead of us - or, more precisely, we feel the required emotions through the medium of the chorus: 'You are then relieved of all worries, even if you do not feel anything, the Chorus will do so in your place.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

32; quote from Lacan's Le séminaire, livre VII : L'éthique de la psychanalyse, 295
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Feeling, Problem

“It was in reading Tristam Shandy that I noticed how it is primarily men who gravitate towards the game-playing self-reflexive style. There is an alienation from emotion in it, a Nervous Nelly fear of letting go and being “exposed.” As an attitude towards life, it betrays a perpetual adolescence. Those who hurled themselves after Derrida were not the most sophisticated but the most pretentious, and least creative members of my generation of academics.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 231

Life, Men, Game, Reading

“Night after night the nightingale came to beg for divine love, but though the rose trembled at the sound of his voice, her petals remained closed to him…
Flower and bird, two species never meant to mate. Yet at length the rose overcame her fear and from that single, forbidden union was born the red rose that Allah never intended the world to know.”

Susan Kay Phantom

Christine Daae (p. 433)
Phantom (1990)

Love, World, Flowers, Bird

“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Secret, Help, Dependency

“I don't think I'd be very good at what you'd call an ordinary job. I think I might be an artist, mixed media. And that is still something I'm interested in pursuing at some point, but I have this fear of taking my eye off the ball, and get distracted from that acting thing.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

The Guardian "Gillian Anderson webchat – as it happened" http://www.theguardian.com/stage/live/2015/feb/06/gillian-anderson-webchat-young-vic-the-departure/ (February 6, 2015) 2010s

Thinking

“Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck frenzy rush
On voluntary death: the wise and brave,
When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar,
Combat the billows with redoubled force:
Then, if they perish ere the port is gained,
They sink with decent pride; and from the deep
Honour retrieves them, bright as rising stars.”

Elijah Fenton (1683–1730) British poet

Act V, Scene VII, pp. 66–67
Mariamne: A Tragedy (1723)

Death, Star, Despair

“From now on, I do not permit my sravaka disciples to eat meat. … One who eats meat kills the seed of great compassion. … I, from now on, tell my disciples to refrain from eating any kind of meat. O Kasyapa! When one eats meat, this gives out the smell of meat while one is walking, standing, sitting or reclining. People smell this and become fearful. This is as when one comes near a lion. One sees and smells the lion, and fear arises. O good man! When one eats garlic, the dirty smell is unbearable. … It is the same with one who eats meat. It is a similar situation with all people who, on smelling the meat, become afraid and entertain the thought of death. All living things in the water, on land and in the sky desert such a person and run away. They say that this person is their enemy.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Mahayana, Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra (or Nirvana Sutra), Chapter Seven: On the Four Aspects

Death, People, Water, Personality

“Plato shows us how Socrates goes to his death in complete peace and composure. The death of Socrates is a beautiful death. Nothing is seen here of death’s terror. Socrates cannot fear death, since indeed it sets us free from the body.. . . Death is the soul’s great friend. So he teaches; and so, in wonderful harmony with his teaching, he dies.”

Oscar Cullmann (1902–1999) French theologian

A Better Hope for the Soul, The Watchtower magazine, 8/1 1996.

Death, Peace, Beauty, Soul

“Let the mind of man be blind to coming doom; he fears, but leave him hope.”
Sit caeca futuri mens hominum fati; liceat sperare timenti.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia

Book II, line 14 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia

Hope

“Melancholy and despair, though often, do not always concur; there is much difference: melancholy fears without a cause, this upon great occasion; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this torment procures them and all extremity of bitterness.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 4, member 2, subsection 3, Causes of Despair, the Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Rigid Ministers, Misunderstanding Scriptures, Guilty Consciences, etc.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III

Despair

“Tis evident, that sympathy, or the communication of passions, takes place among animals, no less than among men. Fear, anger, courage and other affections are frequently communicated from one animal to another […] And 'tis remarkable, that tho' almost all animals use in play the same member, and nearly the same action as in fighting; a lion, a tyger, a cat their paws; an ox his homs; a dog his teeth; a horse his heels: Yet they most carefully avoid harming their companion, even tho' they have nothing to fear from his resentment; which is an evident proof of the sense brutes have of each other's pain and pleasure.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 2, Section 12
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Men, Pain, Pleasure, Dogs

“Men are always the same. Fear makes them cruel.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Moon and Sixpence

Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 55, p. 204

Men

““I think Kathaos fears no divine forces.”
“Then he’s a brave man.”
“Oh, men make their own gods,” Yannul remarked. “I have a god with a fat belly, and a house full of expensive women to attend his every need, and I call him Yannul the Lan in Five Years from This.””

Tanith Lee book The Storm Lord

Book 3, “The Meteoric Hero” Chapter 9 (p. 117)
The Storm Lord (1976)

Women, Men, God, Thinking

“All the Democrats are for higher taxes. All of them are in favor of Hillary's socialist health-care plan. All of them are for higher pay for teachers and nurses — and no pay at all for anyone in the pharmaceutical or oil industries, especially Halliburton executives, who should be sent to Guantánamo. All the Democrats believe the way to strike fear in the hearts of the terrorists is for the federal government to invest heavily in windmills.
All the Democrats oppose the war. And all the Democrats who took a position on the war before it began were for it, but now believe that everything Bush did from that moment forward has been bad! bad! bad! … Finally, all the candidates are willing to sell out any of these other issues in service of the one burning desire of all Democrats: abortion on demand. If they could just figure out a way to abort babies using solar power, that's all we'd ever hear about.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"What happened to your queer party-friends?" (22 January 2004) http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2004/01/22/what_happened_to_your_queer_party-friends/page/full/ also in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), p. 49. 2004

War, Health, Way, Teachers

“To crave wealth and honor, to demand power, to pile up riches, to gather all those vanities which seem to make for pomp and empty display, that is our furious passion and our unbounded desire. On the other hand, we fear and abhor poverty, obscurity, and humility, and we seek to avoid them by all possible means.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 41.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Passion, Wealth

“As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.”

June Jordan (1936–2002) Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist

"Life After Lebanon" (1984), later published in On Call : Political Essays (1985), and Some of Us Did Not Die : New and Selected Essays of June Jordan (2002)

Life, Pain, Truth, Learning

“Remember that every guilty compliance with the humors of the world, every sinful indulgence of our own passions, is laying up cares and fears for the hour of darkness; and that the remembrance of ill-spent time will strew our sick-bed with thorns, and rack our sinking spirits with despair.”

Reginald Heber (1783–1826) English clergyman

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 547.

World, Passion, Time, Despair

“No matter what direction we start off in, the signposts of literature always keep pointing the same way, to a world where nothing is outside the imagination. If even time, the enemy of all living things, and to poets, the most hated and feared of all tyrants, can be broken down by the imagination, anything can be.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

Hate, World, Way, Imagination

“Few people are prepared to use their reason without fear or favor, or bold enough to apply it relentlessly to every moral, political and social issue: to kings and ministers, to men in high places … And if we don't, we're doomed to remain mediocre.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Il y a peu d'hommes qui se permettent un usage vigoureux et intrépide de leur raison, et osent l'appliquer à tous les objets dans toute sa force. Le tems est venu où il faut l'appliquer ainsi à tous les objets de la Morale, de la Politique et de la Société, aux rois, aux ministres, aux grands, aux philosophes, aux principes des Sciences, des Beaux-arts, etc., sans quoi, on restera dans la médiocrité.
Reflections

Men, People

“I am not courageous. To be brave means that you have conquered fear, but I have never had any fear to conquer. Believe me, Mr Leithen, I am quite impervious to threats. You come to me to-night and hold a pistol to my head. You offer me two alternatives, both of which mean failure. But how do you know that I regard them as failure? I have had what they call a good run for my money. No man since Napoleon has tasted such power. I may be willing to end it. Age creeps on and power may grow burdensome. I have always sat loose from common ambitions and common affections. For all you know I may regard you as a benefactor.”

John Buchan book The Power-House

Source: The Power-House (1916), Ch. 8 "The Power-House"

Money, Age, Failure, Courage

“I've known some bad people and some good people in my life, and it's the bad ones who live in fear, all the time. Cause they know their own hearts… And they think everyone else is just waiting to pull the same moves on them that they've got planned to pull on somebody else.”

Orson Scott Card book Homebody

Homebody (1998)

Life, People, Thinking, Time

“Language steps in where the angels of experience fear to tread.”

David Wood (1946) British philosopher, born 1946

Source: Philosophy At The Limit (1990), Chapter 1, The Faces of Silence, p. 5

Angels

“Because they [the ancient Greeks] feared infinite processes they missed the limit process. In approximating a circle by a polygon they were content to make the difference smaller than any given quantity, but something positive was always left over. Thus the process remained clear to the intuition; the limit process, on the other hand, would have involved the infinitely small.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972), p. 176

“These are points to consider when we put our house in order for the advancing hordes of aliens. Experience has taught us to have faith in the bulk of our people. The great decisions in American history have always been right. The heart of the nation is sound and must be kept sound. It is a characteristic of ours that we are ashamed not to be right. I believe that our present concern about immigration is a fear that we will not be able to protect ourselves and at the same time discharge our obligations.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

People, Faith, History, Decision

“I felt sorry for him at that moment. He only wanted what every man wanted—freedom from fear, a chance to raise children with a reasonable certainty that they would be allowed to do the same, a chance to look forward to the future without the knowledge that any plans made might be wrecked forever by some sudden act of violence.”

Michael Moorcock book The Eternal Champion

Source: The Eternal Champion (1970), Chapter 3 “The Eldren Threat” (p. 15)

Children, Knowledge, Freedom, Chance

“The public takes care of their fear by thinking only crazies and stupid people wind up in cults. I've interviewed over 4000 ex-cult members. There's no one type of person who is vulnerable.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1997, as cited in Margaret Thaler Singer http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-4232879_ITM, The Lancet, January 31, 2004 2004

People, Stupidity, Thinking, Personality

“I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.”

Frances Moore Lappé (1944) activist against world hunger

O Magazine, May 2004

“I fight, with myself in the ring of doubt and fear
The rain ain't gone, but I can still see clear
As a child, given religion with no answer to why
Just told believe in Jesus cause for me he did die
Curiosity killed the catechism
Understanding and wisdom became the rhythm that I played to
And became a slave to master self
A rich man is one with knowledge, happiness and his health
My mind had dealt with the books of Zen, Tao the lessons
of the Koran and Bible,
to me they all vital
And got truth within 'em, gotta read them boys
You just can't skim 'em, different branches of belief
But one root that stem 'em, but people of the venom try to trim 'em
And use religion as an emblem
When it should be a natural way of life
Who am I or they to say to whom you pray ain't right?
That's who got you doin' right and got you this far
Whether you say "in Jesus name" or "Al hum du'Allah"
Long as you know it's a being that's supreme to you
You let that show towards others in the things you do
Cause when the trumpets blowin', 24 elders surround the throne
Only 144,000 gon get home”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"G.O.D. (Gaining One's Definition)" (Track 7)
Albums, One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997)

Life, Wisdom, Happiness, People

“Both the Oblation Board and the Specters of Indifference are bewitched by this truth about human beings: that innocence is different from experience. The Oblation Board fears and hates Dust, and the Specters feast on it, but it's Dust both of them are obsessed by.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Stanislaus Grumman to Lee Scoresby in Ch. 14 : Alamo Gulch
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

Hate, Truth, Indifference

“America fears the unshaven legs, the unshaven men's cheeks, the aroma of perspiration, and the limp prick. Above all it fears the limp prick.”

Walter Abish (1931) Austrian-American author

[Walter Abish, In the Future Perfect, New Directions, 1977, ISBN 0811206602, Pg. 22]

Men

“I was tough on myself because I feared being a lazy procrastinator and the inevitable result: being mediocre or second best. I always went the extra mile.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

“The ultimate meaning of the angry young man is not known. What is known is the shape of his greatest fear—that all of his efforts, from learning to speak to learning to write, to write well, to write badly, to write angrily, from learning to despise to learning to abominate, to abominate well, to abominate badly, to abominate abominably, to rant, to fulminate, to shout down the sea, to age, to age graefully, to age awkwardly, to age at all, to think, to regret, to list himself in the newspapers under “Lost and Found”, might culminate precisely in this: a roaring, raging, crazy mad passionate bibliography.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Angry Young Man”, p. 111.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Age, Thinking, Effort, Learning

“They understood in their heart that it was indispensable to be brave; that Odin would have no favor for them, but despise and thrust them out, if they were not brave. Consider too whether there is not something in this! It is an everlasting duty, valid in our day as in that, the duty of being brave. Valor is still value. The first duty for a man is still that of subduing Fear. We must get rid of Fear; we cannot act at all till then.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Heart

“There is nothing beautiful or noble about death or fear.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

"Complete Hero" (2009)

Death, Beauty

“What we want, above all things, in this age is heartiness and holy simplicity; men who justify the holy impulse of grace in their hearts, and do not keep it back by artificial clogs of prudence and false fear, or the sham pretences of fastidiousness and artificial delicacy. These are they whom God will make His witnesses in all ages. They dare to be holy, dare just as readily to be singular. What God puts in them, that they accept; and when He puts a song, they sing it. They know Christ inwardly, and therefore stand for Him outwardly. They endure hardships. They fight a fight. And these are the souls, my brethren, who will stand before God accepted.”

Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 156.

Men, God, Age, Soul

“Why I’m telling you this is because that’s where this music comes from, that’s where my art comes from. You’re talking to a miracle; I am a miracle. I’m not halfway there, you know, dut-dut-dut-dut-da, drink a beer, hang out with my buddies, smoke a joint and get together with the band, wanna be a rock star; no. I am a very troubled individual who has been handed these obstacles in life, and overcome my fears to be honest with myself, so I can be honest with you. That’s not exploitation, it’s liberation.”

Travis Meeks (1979) American musician

[LEO Weekly, http://leoweekly.com/?q=node/7333, MUSIC ISSUE: You're talking to a miracle, 2008-07-16]

Life, Art, Music, Star

“Strange is the vigour in a brave man's soul. The strength of his spirit and his irresistible power, the greatness of his heart and the height of his condition, his mighty confidence and contempt of danger, his true security and repose in himself, his liberty to dare and do what he pleaseth, his alacrity in the midst of fears, his invincible temper, are advantages which make him master of fortune.”

Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) English poet

Christian Ethicks (1675); cited from Bertram Dobell (ed.) The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. (London: Bertram Dobell, 1903) p. lvii.

Soul, Confidence, Heart

“He was not a friend to Paine's doctrines, but he was not to be deterred by a name from acknowledging that he considered the rights of man as the foundation of every government, and those who stood out against those rights as conspirators against the people. The dearest right of Englishmen was to the possession of their constitution, while it was maintained on its true principles; but if it was abused, the effect must infallibly be to inflame men's minds, and ministers alone would be responsible for the consequences which might ensue. If the people complained of grievances, let those grievances be removed, and their discontents would cease. If the people were put in possession of their rights, there would be no longer any fear of internal or foreign danger…The retreat of the duke of Brunswick, which he, along with his right hon. friend, and every friend of freedom, considered as matter of joy and exultation, had indeed thrown them into confusion.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Commons (12 December 1792), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XXX (London: 1817), pp. 41-42.
1790s

Men, Pain, People, Freedom

“When a child can be brought to tears, not from fear of punishment, but from repentance for his offence, he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from grief at one's own conduct, be sure there is an angel nestling in the bosom.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 116, also paraphrased as: "When a child can be brought to tears, and not from fear of punishment, but from repentance he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from the grief of their conduct you can be sure there is an angel nestling in their heart.

Angels, Tear

“I think I'm a clinical worrier, I worry about everything and I've always been that way. I want to make sure that everything works out as planned and I just get lost in my worries and fears. As if that isn't enough, I also worry about everybody else and try to carry their burden. It's like I'm trying to carry the weight of the whole world on my shoulders.”

Jonathan Davis (1971) Heavy metal singer, frontman for Korn

World, Way, Thinking

“The emperor Antoninus was a practical moralist. From his youth he followed a laborious discipline, and though his high station placed him above all want or the fear of it, he lived as frugally and temperately as the poorest philosopher.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

The Philosophy of Antoninus

Youth

“A key moment of my spiritual epiphany was the tale told by the property manager of our apartment block, Mrs Marina. Every year on All Saints Day if I remember correctly, she commemorated the death of her son who died from an overdose. She baked some holy bread, antidoro, and then took it to her parish Church as an offering for evening vespers. When I asked Mrs Marina why she was doing this, she replied simply, "So that Christ speaks to my son and takes pity", as it is on this particular day it is believed that the Christ descends once again into the bowels of hell, not to defeat death this time as in Holy Saturday, but to keep company with the so called damned. For mothers like Mrs Marina fearful that their dead children might inhabit this nether world because of their sins, despair of redemption etc, Christ's visit provides some hope- that He might take pity on them and relieve them of their eternal punishment. Christ as the God that Unshackles the power of Hell and Death, the Resurrected Christ that even reaches out to the damned, and not the Christ of Deo Satisfactio of the heretical western Churches is one of the great glories of Greek Orthodoxy and of Orthodoxy as a whole.”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

Death, God, Children, World

“Religious practice is costly in terms of material sacrifice (at least one's prayer time), emotional expenditure (inciting fears and hopes), and cognitive effort (maintaining both factual and counterintuitive networks of beliefs).”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 4
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

Hope, Effort, Time

“Against all the odds of inertia and ignorance and fear of state power, Clarence Earl Gideon insisted that he had a right to a lawyer and kept on insisting all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. His triumph there shows that even the poorest and least powerful of men — a convict with not even a friend to visit him in prison — can take his cause to the highest court in the land and bring about a fundamental change in the law.”

Anthony Lewis movie Gideon's Trumpet

[218, Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Vintage, 1989, 9780679723127, Gideon's Trumpet, http://books.google.com/books?id=IhDfidRb5wIC&pg=PA218&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false]

Men, Law, Way, Change

“There is nothing more dangerous to the shackles of complacency and the warden of fear than philosophy in action.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 154

“We know God well, we don't fear dying but we fear only standing in front of God. but as we are sure we are on the right way, there is no problem.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during a military conference (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC93fn9s3-c. 2013

God, Way, Problem

“For such is the work of philosophy: it cures souls, draws off vain anxieties, confers freedom from desires, drives away fears.”
Nam efficit hoc philosophia: medetur animis, inanes sollicitudines detrahit, cupiditatibus liberat, pellit timores.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, Chapter IV; translation by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

Soul, Freedom, Drawing

“I have from the beginning been adverse to distant expeditions for the purpose of expanding our colonial possessions. They are necessarily attended with a further division of our force, and with a diminution of our means of acting in Europe. Whilst we are acquiring colonies, the enemy is subjugating the Continent; and though I am by no means disposed to raise doubts of our ability to maintain the contest in this manner, I cannot help fearing the effect of any system which might enable the French, either completely to subdue the remaining Powers of the Continent, or to engage them in opinion against this country…In Europe the most formidable danger exists. It is there that every effort should be made to stop the career of the enemy. Our interest and our reputation are equally at stake. Our allies have a right to look to us for support, and our honour requires that we should not appear to be wanting to the common cause. With a view, therefore, to a continuance of the war on the Continent, I am strongly of opinion that we should immediately collect and prepare for embarkation the largest possible British force that can be made applicable to such a service.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Minute written whilst Foreign Secretary (autumn 1806) and docketed as 'objections intended to have been submitted to the King, if the plan for more extended operations in South America had been persevered in', quoted in Lieutenant-General Hon. C. Grey, Some Account of the Life and Opinions of Charles, Second Earl Grey (London: Richard Bentley, 1861), pp. 135-136.
1800s

War, Support, Effort, Distant

“And now, as a result of honoring our commitment to our gallant allies, that man Roosevelt has sought from the U. S. Congress a declaration of war not only against England and France but also against the Confederate States of America. His servile lackeys, misnamed Democrats, have given him what he wanted, and the telegraph informs me that fighting has begun along our border and on the high seas. Leading our great and peaceful people into war is a fearful thing, not least because, with the great advances of science and industry over the past half-century, this may prove the most disastrous and terrible of all wars, truly a war of the nations: indeed a war of the world. But right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for those things we have always held dear in our hearts: for the rights of the Confederate States and of the white men who live in them; for the liberties of small nations everywhere from outside oppression; for our own freedom and independence from the vicious, bloody regime to the north. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and fortunes, everything we are and all that we have, with the pride of those who know the day has come when the Confederacy is privileged to spend her blood and her strength for the principles that gave her birth and led to her present happiness. God helping us, we can do nothing else. Men of the Confederacy, is it your will that a state of war should exist henceforth between us and the United States of America?" "Yes!”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

The answer roared from Reginald Bartlett's throat, as from those of the other tens of thousands of people jamming the Capitol Square. Someone flung a straw hat in the air. In an instant, hundreds of them, Bartlett's included, were flying. A great chorus of "Dixie" rang out, loud enough, Bartlett thought, for the damnyankees to hear it in Washington.
Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 33

Men, God, War, Happiness

“As I was writing about Grace Marks, and about her interlude in the Asylum, I came to see her in context — the context of other people's opinions, both the popular images of madness and the scientific explanations for it available at the time. A lot of what was believed and said on the subject appears like sheer lunacy to us now. But we shouldn't be too arrogant — how many of our own theories will look silly when those who follow us have come up with something better? But whatever the scientists may come up with, writers and artists will continue to portray altered mental states, simply because few aspects of our nature fascinate people so much. The so-called mad person will always represent a possible future for every member of the audience — who knows when such a malady may strike? When "mad," at least in literature, you aren't yourself; you take on another self, a self that is either not you at all, or a truer, more elemental one than the person you're used to seeing in the mirror. You're in danger of becoming, in Shakespeare's works, a mere picture or beast, and in Susanna Moodie's words, a mere machine; or else you may become an inspired prophet, a truth-sayer, a shaman, one who oversteps the boundaries of the ordinarily visible and audible, and also, and especially, the ordinarily sayable. Portraying this process is deep power for the artist, partly because it's a little too close to the process of artistic creation itself, and partly because the prospect of losing our self and being taken over by another, unfamiliar self is one of our deepest human fears.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For (1997)

People, Truth, Literature, Nature

“These who are represented here were men in whom courage had reached a high moral quality. They had been brave enough not to shrink from looking at facts and institutions. They had been honest enough to admit that they saw there much that was not good. They glossed over no wrongs, they hid away no skeletons. They did not pretend that wrong was right or ever could be right. They had put much thought to the lessons of hard experience, and had frankly acknowledged that they must deal with a crisis in the Nation's life. They were sure that union was a blessing, that slavery was a wrong, and that domestic war was the supreme human tragedy. This settled, they saw that one of three courses must be taken. They could have had peace with disunion, or they could have had peace and union, with slavery. Freedom with union, they saw at last, meant war. We know how they decided. We know at what fearful cost they supported their decision.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Life, Men, War, Peace

“Large-eyed and well endowed, as her name Pritha connotes, she is strikingly lovely, and Kuntibhoja exhorts her not to neglect any service out of pride in her beauty. Kunti’s relationship with Durvasa does not appear to have been easy. In the account she gives much later to Vyasa, she tells him that despite Durvasa’s conduct having been such as to provide abundant cause for anger, she had not given way to it. She further states that she was constrained at the sage’s insistence to accept his boon, whereby any god would be compelled to answer her summons, and that she obeyed out of fear of his curse. The interaction that she describes after this between her and the sun god, Surya, is exactly similar – the same insistence and the same fear.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Five Holy Virgins, Five Sacred MythsOf Kunti and Satyawati Sexually Assertive Women of the Mahabharata

Love, God, Beauty, Way

“The observer usually will see what his fears and hopes and learning teach him to see. But if he can escape these demands that hold up a mirror to himself, then perhaps some of the implications of the work may be felt. But whatever is seen of felt it should be remembered that for me these paintings had to be something else. It is the price one has to pay for clarity when one’s means are honoured only as an instrument of seduction or assault.”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

Letter to Dorothy Miller February 5, 1952; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 193
1950s

Hope, Learning, Painting

“One cannot reduce terror by holding over the world the threat of what it most fears.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Citizenship Papers (2003), A Citizen's Response

World

“The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that aye be your border.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

Stanza 8
Epistle to a Young Friend (1786)

Feeling, Hell

“Fear of this possibility in particular led Tiberius to ask the senate for any part in the administration that it might please them to assign him, saying that no one man could bear the whole burden without a colleague, or even several colleagues.”
Quem maxime casum timens, partes sibi quas senatui liberet, tuendas in re p[ublica]. depoposcit, quando universae sufficere solus nemo posset nisi cum altero vel etiam cum pluribus.

Tiberius (-42–37 BC) 2nd Emperor of Ancient Rome, member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

Variant translation (by Robert Graves): "Pray assign me any part in the government you please; but remember that no single man can bear the whole burden of Empire — I need a colleague, or perhaps several colleagues."
From Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, ch. 25

Parting

“Fear is the root of all courage”

Vivian Stanshall (1943–1995) English musician, artist and author

???Rev. Slodden, Rawlinson End
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1978)

Courage

“Rather than the obsession with impurity, you'd do better to fear the nostalgia for purity.”

Georges Bernanos book Monsieur Ouine

The curé of Fenouille to Dr. Malépine, p. 213
Monsieur Ouine, 1943

Nostalgia

“Ole man trouble
Go find you someone else to pick on.
I live my life now you see.
Ole man trouble,
Please stay away from me, now.Oh I look like I'm down in my luck.
Please send faith to help pick me up.
I've lived this way so many years
Ole man trouble,
Please wash away all my fears.”

Otis Redding (1941–1967) American singer, songwriter and record producer

Ole Man Trouble.
Song lyrics, Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

Life, Faith, Way, Help

“Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him; so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves and berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice how short it had become; but he never noticed, he had so much to say about himself.
She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.”

J. M. Barrie book Peter Pan

Source: Peter and Wendy (1911), Ch. 17

Boy, Time

“The distinguishing quality of most primitive art is the intense vitality which it possesses, because it has been made by a people in close touch with life, who felt simply and strongly, and whose art was a means of expressing vitally important beliefs, hopes and fears. Negro sculpture is essentially religious and cannot be detached from the tribal gods, priests and ancient rituals. When civilization destroyed these things, it also destroyed their Art. These carvings have a serious and pathetic power – a bigness and monumental simplicity born of the racial patience in bearing life with all its terror and mystery....(But as always, it was the artist who was the first to see in them a new thing – a new plastic conception – an artistic worth – a value as art – their importance as art).”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

1925 - 1940
Source: Primitive African Sculpture, Foreword, Lefevre Galleries, London 1933, p. ?

Life, God, People, Hope

“The prototypical WASP is flabby in body and mind. He is fearful and easily cowed. He erupts in tears at a drop of a hat. He is gripped by the culture of apology, and flagellates over sins he has not committed. His eternal state of expiation is driven not by goodness, but by insufferable self-righteousness.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Sacrificing Kids to PC Pietism,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=607 WorldNetDaily.com, July 1, 2011. 2010s, 2011

Tear

“I will go upon the rock, boys, and look abroad for the savages," said Ishmael shortly after, advancing towards them with a mien which he intended should be conciliating, at the same time that it was authoritative. "If there is nothing to fear, we will go out on the plain; the day is too good to be lost in words, like women in the towns wrangling over their tea and sugared cakes.”

James Fenimore Cooper book The Prairie

The Prairie (1827)

Women, Boy, Time, Tea

“Division is the work of human pride, hate, lust, fear, greed. Division is the trademark of materialism.”

Frank Buchman (1878–1961) Evangelical theologist

Remaking the world, The Speeches of Frank N.D. Buchman, Blandford Presss 1947, revised 1958, p. 166
Quotes on the war of ideas

Hate

“If the law tries to legislate our “yeses” and “noes” it will produce “the straitjacket generation” – a generation afraid to flirt, fearful of finding its love notes in a court suit. Date rape legislation will force suitors and courting to give way to courts and suing.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 340.

Love, Law, Way

“It is the most wretched spectacle you can imagine. I won't fight for two reasons: firstly because I have no faith in waging war with guns and cannons, and it is not part of my creed. For ten years I have been fighting a war of wits. I would not be true to myself if I acted otherwise. Secondly, I have no weapons and I won't be persuaded. So you have nothing to fear where I am concerned”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter to his parents, (June 1848); as cited 'Gustave Courbet', by Georges Riat, Parkstone International, 2015,
1840s - 1850s

War, Faith, Imagination, Fight

“I do not pretend that I know the whole solution of the world's problems, but I am burdened with a Puritanical sense of obligation to set the world to rights. I feel responsible for many enterprises that are not really my business at all, but many times I have kept silence on issues that interested me deeply through the fear that others would be blamed for my opinions. I have never been willing to believe that human nature cannot be changed; but even if it cannot, I am sure it can be curbed and led into channels of usefulness. I believe that life, not wealth, is the aim of existence — life including all its attributes of love, happiness, and joyful labour. I believe war is the inevitable fruit of our economic system, but even if I am wrong I believe that truth can lose nothing by agitation but may gain all.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Midstream (1929)

Love, Life, War, Happiness

“But true love comes, not so lightly
Without fear and with no doubting,
We always fear that what we love may fail,
So I don't dare to stir myself to speak.”

Bernart de Ventadorn troubador

Mas greu veiretz fin' amansa ses paor e ses doptansa, c'ades tem om vas so c'ama, falhir, per qu'eu no·m aus de parlar enardir. "Ab joi mou lo vers e·l comens", line 13; translation by James H. Donalson. http://www.brindin.com/poven001.htm

Love

“My perception of wolves was much the same as any other kid. I was brought up to fear them. But it was through the fox that I got interested in wolves at an early age.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

Interview with A Man Among Wolves: Shaun Ellis http://incubator.nationalgeographic.com/inside_ngc/2007/04/interview-with-a-man-among-wolves-shaun-ellis.html, Inside NGS, (2007)

Age

“My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

The Prisoner of Chillon http://readytogoebooks.com/PC31.htm, st. 1 (1816).

Men, Night

“But there is merit even in the mentally retarded legislator. He asks the questions that everyone is afraid to ask for fear of seeming simple.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 12, p. 328

Question

“For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahāmati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Mahayana, Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Chapter Eight. On Meat-eating

“The mindless ferocity of this man, and all those like him, their real loathing born of nothing more solid than insecurity and fear…It was a channel. Will knew that he had been gazing into the channel down which the powers of the Dark, if they gained their freedom, could ride in an instant to complete control of the earth.”

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 4 “Midsummer Day” (p. 54)

Freedom

“Banda Singh was impelled by the purest of motives in consecrating himself for the liberation and independence of his people and was an embodiment of selflessness. He always lived up to the principles: ‘Wishing the advancement of the Panth, walking in the path of dharma, fearing sin, living up to truth,’ as enjoined by Guru Govind Singh, who never considered lying, intrigue and treachery as part and parcel of politics.”

Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716) Sikh military commander

Life Of Banda Singh Bahadur Based On Contemporary And Original Records Dr. Ganda Singh" https://archive.org/stream/LifeOfBandaSinghBahadurBasedOnContemporaryAndOriginalRecordsDr.GandaSingh/Life+of+Banda+Singh+Bahadur+Based+on+Contemporary+and+Original+Records+-+Dr.+Ganda+Singh_djvu.txt

People, Truth, Lying, Motivation

“The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“Since September 11, 2001, I have often thought that perhaps it was fortunate for the world that the attackers targeted the World Trade Center instead of the Statue of Liberty, for if they had destroyed our sacred symbol of democracy I fear we as Americans would have been unable to keep ourselves from indulging in paroxysms of revenge of a sort the world has never seen before. If that had happened, it would have befouled the meaning of the Statue of Liberty beyond any hope of subsequent redemption — if there were any people left to care. I have learned from my students that this upsetting thought of mine is subject to several unfortunate misconstruals, so let me expand on it to ward them off. The killing of thousands of innocents in the World Trade Center was a heinous crime, much more evil than the destruction of the Statue of Liberty would have been. And, yes, the World Trade Center was a much more appropriate symbol of al Qaeda's wrath than the Statue of Liberty would have been, but for that very reason it didn't mean as much, as a symbol, to us. It was Mammon and Plutocrats and Globalization, not Lady Liberty. I do suspect that the fury with which Americans would have responded to the unspeakable defilement of our cherished national symbol, the purest image of our aspirations as a democracy, would have made a sane and measured response extraordinarily difficult. This is the great danger of symbols — they can become too "sacred."”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

An important task for religious people of all faiths in the twenty-first century will be spreading the conviction that there are no acts more dishonorable than harming "infidels" of one stripe or another for "disrespecting" a flag, a cross, a holy text.
Breaking the Spell (2006)

People, World, Faith, Hope

“The irony, often tragic, is that by embracing the scarcity assumption, we create the very scarcities we fear. … We create scarcity by fearfully accepting it as law and by competing with others for resources.”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999)

Law

“The managers - these administrators, experts, directing engineers, production executives, propaganda specialists, technocrats - are the only social group among almost all of whose members we find an attitude of self-confidence. Bankers, capitalist owners, liberal politicians, workers, farmers, shopkeepers-all these display, in public and private, doubts and fears and worries and gloom. But no one who comes into contact with managers will fail to have noticed a very considerable assurance in their whole bearing. They know that they are indispensable in modern society.”

James Burnham (1905–1987) American philosopher

Source: The Managerial Revolution, 1941, p. 281, as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 13-4

Confidence, Self-confidence

“I believe the printed word is more than sacred
Beyond the gauge of good or bad
The human right to let your soul fly free and naked
Above the violence of the fearful and sad”

Andy Partridge (1953) British musician

"Books Are Burning".
Nonsuch (1992)

Sadness, Soul, Gauge, Flying

“To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction — every kind of evidence in the logician's list — have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 2

People, Memory, Night

“Past are three summers since she first beheld
The ocean; all around the child await
Some exclamation of amazement here.
She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased,
Is this the mighty ocean? is this all?
That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,—
Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold,
Soul discontented with capacity,—
Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say
She was enchanted by the wicked spells
Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed
The western winds have landed on our coast?
I since have watcht her in lone retreat,
Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

Gebir, Book I (1798). It is reported that "these lines were specially singled out for admiration by Shelley, Humphrey Davy, Scott, and many remarkable men"; Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), citing Forster, Life of Landor, vol. i. p. 95.

Soul, Past, Summer

“[These are] not paintings in the usual sense, they are life and death merging in fearful union.”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

Clyfford Still (ca. 1950) as quoted in Abstract Expressionism, Davind Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990, p. 138: About his own work
1950s

Life, Death, Sense, Painting

“If failure or disgrace arrives, if one suddenly finds that the faces of men show coldness or contempt instead of the kindliness and deference that he is used to, he will perceive from the shock, the fear, the sense of being outcast and helpless, that he was living in the minds of others without knowing it, just as we daily walk the solid ground without thinking how it bears us up.”

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American sociologist

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 207

Men, Failure, Thinking, Sense

“Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both mighty and wise. And he was feared for his might and loved for his wisdom. Now, in the heart of that city was a well, whose water was cool and crystalline, from which all the inhabitants drank, even the king and his courtiers; for there was no other well. One night when all were asleep, a witch entered the city, and poured seven drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From this hour he who drinks this water shall become mad.” Next morning all the inhabitants, save the king and his lord chamberlain, drank from the well and became mad, even as the witch had foretold. And during that day the people in the narrow streets and in the market places did naught but whisper to one another, “The king is mad. Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason. Surely we cannot be ruled by a mad king. We must dethrone him.” That evening the king ordered a golden goblet to be filled from the well. And when it was brought to him he drank deeply, and gave it to his lord chamberlain to drink. And there was great rejoicing in that distant city of Wirani, because its king and its lord chamberlain had regained their reason.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

The Madman (1918)

Love, Wisdom, People, Drink

“There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Henry Lee (15 May 1826)
1820s

Truth, World

“She closed her eyes. And while her intellect wouldn’t let her realize her deepest fear, that all this might soon be gone forever, nevertheless she stood there for a time and worshipped the only way a person like her could worship—in silence and solitude, under the temple of the sky.”

David Brin book Earth

Part VI (p. 307)
Earth (1990)

Way, Solitude, Silence, Time

“At this time a high-ranking SS leader hinted to me that Himmler was preparing decisive steps. In February 1945, the Reichsführer-SS had assumed command of the Vistula Army Group, but he was no better than his successor at stopping the Russian advance. Hitler was now berating him also. Thus what personal prestige Himmler had retained was used up by a few weeks of commanding frontline troops. Nevertheless, everyone still feared Himmler, and I felt distinctly shaky one day on learning that Himmler was coming to see me about something that evening. This, incidentally, was the only time he ever called on me. My nervousness grew when Theodor Hupfauer, the new chief of our Central Office- with whom I had several times spoken rather candidly- told me in some trepidation that Gestapo chief Kaltenbrunner would be calling on him at the same hour. Before Himmler entered, by adjutant whispered to me: "He's alone." My office was without window panes; we no longer bothered replacing them since they were blasted out by bombs every few days. A wretched candle stood at the center of the table; the electricity was out again. Wrapped in our coats, we sat facing one another. Himmler talked about minor matters, asked about pointless details, and finally made the witless observation: "When the course is downhill there's always a floor to the valley, and once it is reached, Herr Speer, the ascent begins again." Since I expressed neither agreement nor disagreement with this proverbial wisdom and remained virtually monosyllabic throughout the conversation, he soon took his leave. I never found out what he wanted of it, or why Kaltenbrunner called on Hupfauer at the same time. Perhaps t hey had heard about my critical attitude and were seeking allies; perhaps they merely wanted to sound us out.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

Source: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 427-428

Wisdom, Decision, Learning, Time

“Standing before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn that it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington's house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl out onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.”

John Green book Paper Towns

Quentin "Q" Jacobsen, pp. 140-141
Paper Towns (2008)

Feeling, Exercises, Fish, Learning

“The behaviourist motto is "cure the symptoms and you have eliminated the neurosis." Consequently, the behaviour therapist's approach is straightforward. He deals with definite complaints of patients such as fears of certain situations, tics, or obsessional thoughts, which are considered by him to be bad habits. His remedy for them is to use definite and explicit retraining procedures.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Models of Mental Illness (1984), p. 138, partly cited in: Erica Cockrell (2013) " Psychodynamic Therapy http://specialstudentpopulations.weebly.com/theoretical-perspectives.html" at specialstudentpopulations.weebly.com

“We have entered an age of insecurity—economic insecurity, physical insecurity, political insecurity. The fact that we are largely unaware of this is small comfort: few in 1914 predicted the utter collapse of their world and the economic and political catastrophes that followed. Insecurity breeds fear. And fear—fear of change, fear of decline, fear of strangers and an unfamiliar world—is corroding the trust and interdependence on which civil societies rest.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Introduction

Age, World, Change

“I saw a woman of thirty-five, living peacefully in the bosom of her family after an interrupted novitiate, show sudden signs of incomprehensible nervous terror, speak of possible 'reprisals', and refuse to go out alone. A very dear friend, took pity on her, offered her shelter. 'Come, child, what have you to fear? You're one of God's little lambs…' 'Harmless? That's all you know! Everybody thinks as you do, and nobody's frightened of me. Well - you can find out for yourself. I had eight men shot, madame…”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.87-88

Men, God, Family, Thinking