“Fear and superstition always follow the unseen, the unknown, the whispered of.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer
Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 34, “I Am M’urgi/On B’Yurngrad” (p. 312)
McKenna interview (1992)
Context: There's always fear of the unknown where there's mystery. It's possible to achieve a state where you realize the truth of life and fear disappears, and a lot of people have reached that state, but next to none of them are on Earth. There's probably a few.
“Fear and superstition always follow the unseen, the unknown, the whispered of.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer
Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 34, “I Am M’urgi/On B’Yurngrad” (p. 312)
“In a world of diminishing mystery, the unknown persists.”
Jhumpa Lahiri book The Lowland
Source: The Lowland
“Instead of fearing the unknown, we must conquer our fear.”
Newton Lee American computer scientist
Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" (1927)
Non-Fiction
Variant: The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown
Source: The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
“Science has only increased the area of the unknown. And if there is a God, her name is Mystery.”
Fritz Leiber book Our Lady of Darkness
Source: Our Lady of Darkness (1977), Chapter 8 (p. 43)
“Its life depends on the degree to which it is inhabited by mystery, speaks to us of the unknown.”
Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist
"The Painter in the Press", 'X magazine, Vol. I, No.4 (October 1960).
“1814. Always tell the Truth : where it is not loved, it is respected and feared.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)
“What was reprehensible in being fearful in the presence of the unknown?”
Michael Bishop (1945) American writer
Source: A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975), Chapter 1, “Planetfall: The Hawks of Conscience” (p. 33)