“Fear arises sooner than anything else.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
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Leonardo Da Vinci 363
Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519Related quotes
“If a person fears God, she has no reason to fear anything else.”

“Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
"Politics and the English Language" (1946)
Context: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death.”
Source: 1910s, Why Men Fight https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Men_Fight (1917), pp. 178-179
Context: Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. It sees man, a feeble speck, surrounded by unfathomable depths of silence; yet it bears itself proudly, as unmoved as if it were lord of the universe. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Quoted in K. Patrick Malone, Inside a Haunted Mind (2008) p. 167

“Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.”

“Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.”

“The emotions come closer than anything else to the vividness of inner data.”
Session 24, Page 188
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 1

“I just make crap up more than anything else.”
Ain't It Cool News interview